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BV  4900  .B873  1896 

Brooks,  Phillips,  1835-1893 

Good  cheer  for  a  year 


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z. 


GOOD  CHEER 

FOR  A   YEAR 

SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  WRITINGS  OF  THE 

Rt.   Rev.   PHILLIPS   BROOKS,   D.D. 


W.   M.   L.  JAI 


OCT   15  1998 


All  life  which  would  not  grow  stale  and  monotonous  must  feed  itself  upon 
God.  ...  All  life  which  would  make  To-day  the  transmutation  place 
where  Yesterday  shall  give  its  power  to  Forever,  must  be  full  of  the  felt 
presence  of  Him  in  whom  yesterday,  to-day  and  forever  are  all  one.-  vi   344 


NEW  YORK 

E.   P.  DUTTON   AND   COMPANY 

3 1  West  Twenty-third  Street 


r- 


'^^'"'^  CHORCH 
^   Oi%  HJ  08540 


Copyright,  1896,  by 
E.  P.  BUTTON  &  CO. 


Press  of  J.  J.  Little  &  Co. 
Astor  Place,  New  York 


PREFACE. 

It  is  too  soon  to  let  the  ministry  of  Bishop 
Brooks  pass  into  the  shadow  of  forgetfuhiess. 
He  "  yet  speaketh  "  in  a  multitude  of  works 
which,  in  a  remarkable  degree,  combine  lofty 
spirituality  and  plain  practicalness  with  rare 
human  sympathy,  and  are  therefore  particu- 
larly well  adapted  to  the  sustenance  and  guid- 
ance of  the  daily  Christian  life.  There  are 
those  who  are  so  fortunate  as  to  be  able  to 
study  these  works  as  a  whole,  but  there  are 
also  many  busy  people  who  are  glad  to  have 
one  thought,  suitable  and  sufficient  unto  the 
day,  ready  to  their  hands  in  a  convenient 
form.  To  such  a  second  year-book  is  offered, 
not  by  the  same  hand  as  the  first,  but  com- 
piled on  the  same  plan,  for  the  excellent 
reason  that  it  cannot  be  bettered. 

The  labor  of  making  the  book  has  been 
increased  by  the  abundance  of  the  material. 
Many  year-books  might  be  quarried  out  of  it 
without  exhausting  its  richness  and  variety, 
or  its  wealth  of  helpful  suggestion  for  those 
who  are  trying  to  live  the  life  of  faith  in  uni- 


IV  PREFACE. 


son  with  the  life  of  action,  to  "  round  every 
truth  with  its  duty,  and  deepen  every  duty 
into  its  truth."  Inevitably  the  thought  comes 
that  such  a  daily  ministry  to  hearts  thrilled  and 
elated  with  life's  duties  and  joys,  or  sore  and 
weary  with  its  burdens,  must  be  deeply  grat- 
ifying to  him  with  whose  rich  and  abundant 
life  of  faith  and  works  it  is  impossible  to  asso- 
ciate any  thought  of  death.  The  monks  of 
Antioch  were  wont  to  say  of  a  brother,  not 
"  He  is  dead,"  but  ''  He  is  perfected." 

For  those  who  like  to  follow  the  Christian 
Year,  and  who  may  wish  to  use  the  book 
more  than  once,  selections  for  the  greater 
movable  fasts  and  feasts  are  appended  to  the 
volume. 

W.  M.  L.  Jay. 


Sermons,   ist  Series, 

Sermons,  2d  Series, 

Sermons,  3D  Series, 

Sermons,  4TH  Series, 

Sermons,  5th  Series, 

Sermons,  6th  Series, 

Sermons  for  the   Principal    Festivals 

Fasts, 

The  Influence  of  Jesus, 

Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching, 

Essays  and  Addresses, 

The  Life  Here  and  the  Life  Hereafter, 

The  Good  Wine  at  the  Feast's  End,     . 


I 

II 

III 

IV 

V 
VI 

VII 

VIII 

IX 

X 

XI 

XII 


[The  Roman  numerals  at  the  end  of  the  selections  refer 
to  the  above  list  of  books  ;  the  Arabic  numerals  to  the 
pages  where  the  selections  may  be  found.] 


JANUARY 


Be  strong  a?id  of  a  good  courage^   .  .  .  for  the 
Lord  thy  God  is  with  thee  wherever  thou  goest. 

Josh.  i.  9. 

THE  poetry  of  all  growing  life  consists  in 
carrying  an  oldness  into  a  newness,  a  past 
into  a  future,  always.  So  only  can  our  days 
possibly  be  "  bound  each  to  each  by  natural 
piety."  I  would  not  for  the  world  think  that 
twenty  years  hence  I  should  have  ceased  to  see 
the  things  which  I  see  now,  and  love  them  still. 
It  would  make  life  wearisome  beyond  expres- 
sion if  I  thought  that  twenty  years  hence  I 
should  see  them  just  as  I  see  them  now,  and 
love  them  with  no  deeper  love  because  of  other 
visions  of  their  lovableness.  And  so  there 
comes  this  deep  and  simple  rule  for  any  man 
as  he  crosses  the  line  dividing  one  period  of 
his  life  from  another:  Make  it  a  time  in  which 
you  shall  realize  your  faith,  and  also  in  which 
you  shall  expect  of  your  faith  new  and  greater 
things.  Take  what  you  believe  and  are  and 
hold  it  in  your  hand  with  new  firmness  as  you 
go  forward;  but  as  you  go,  holding  it,  look  on 
it  with  continual  and  confident  expectation  to 
see  it  open  into  something  greater  and  truer. 

V.  296. 

Go  with  the  sun  and  the  stars,  and  yet  ever- 
more in  thy  spirit 

Say  to  thyself:  It  is  good,  yet  there  is  better 
than  it: 

This  that  I  see  is  not  all,  and  this  that  I  do  is 
but  little; 

Nevertheless  it  is  good,  though  there  is  better 
than  it.  Arthur  Hugh  Ci.ouoh. 


JANUARY    2. 


I  think  that  nothing  made  is  lost, 
That  not  a  moon  has  ever  shone, 

That  not  a  cloud  my  eyes  hath  crossed, 
But  to  my  soul  is  gone; 

That  all  the  lost  years  garnered  lie 
In  this  Thy  casket,  my  dim  soul; 

And  Thou  wilt,  once,  the  key  supply. 
And  show  the  shining  whole. 

George  Macdonald. 

WHILE  we  leave  everything  behind  in  time, 
it  is  no  less  true  that  nothing  is  wholly 
left  behind.  All  that  we  ever  have  been  or 
done  is  with  us  in  some  power  and  consequence 
of  it  until  the  end.  .  .  ,  The  unity  of  life  is 
never  lost.  There  must  not  be  any  waste. 
How  great  and  gracious  is  the  economy  of 
life  which  it  involves!  Neither  to  dwell  in 
any  experience  always,  nor  to  count  any  ex- 
perience as  if  it  had  not  been,  but  to  leave 
the  forms  of  our  experiences  behind,  and  to 
go  forth  from  them  clothed  in  their  spiritual 
power,  which  is  infinitely  free  and  capable  of 
new  activities, — this  is  what  God  is  always 
teaching  us  is  possible,  and  tempting  us  to  do. 
To  him  who  does  it  come  the  two  great  bless- 
ings of  a  growing  life, — faithfulness  and  lib- 
erty: faithfulness  in  each  moment's  task,  and 
liberty  to  enter  through  the  gates  beyond 
which  lies  the  larger  future.  "  Well  done, 
good  servant:  thou  hast  been  faithful  over  a 
few  things.  Enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy 
Lord." 

VI.  57,  58. 


JANUARY    3. 


And  because  ye  are  sons,  God  hath  sent  forth  the 
Spirit  of  His  Son  into  your  hearts^  crying,  Abba, 
Father. — Gal.  iv.  6. 


WERE  there  ever  verses  that  had  a  sub- 
limer  occupancy  ?  God  is  there,  and 
Jesus  Christ,  and  the  Holy  Spirit.  And  in  the 
midst  of  them  all,  as  the  being  for  whom  they 
all  are  working,  there  is  man.  As  the  win- 
dows of  these  verses  open,  this  is  what  we  see: 
all  the  prevalent  influence  of  heaven  gathered 
around  man,  and  by  its  united  power  bringing 
him  into  the  perfect  sympathy  of  God.  The 
Father  sees  him  and  loves  him;  the  Son  comes 
and  seeks  him;  the  Spirit  spreads  through  his 
heart  the  sense  of  all  this  love;  and  then  he, 
loved,  redeemed,  and  quickened,  reconciled  to 
God,  is  seen,  at  the  last,  lifting  up  his  hands 
and  claiming  God,  crying,  *'  Abba,  Father." 
What  a  vast  chorus  of  sublimest  life  I  How 
the  soul  stands  amazed  and  awed!  Here  are 
all  heaven  and  all  that  is  capable  of  heavenli- 
ness  upon  earth  met  together,  and  the  end 
of  their  meeting  is  complete  accord.  God  is 
pouring  His  life  into  man.  Man  is  sending 
back  his  tribute — rendering  his  life  to  God. 
It  is  the  chorus  of  reconciled  Divinity  and 
humanity.  VII.  99. 


O  wonderful,  oh,  passing  thought, 
The  love  that  God  hath  had  for  thee, 

Spending  on  thee  no  less  a  sum 
Than  the  undivided  Trinity! 

Faber. 


JANUARY   4. 


From  glory  to  glory. — 2  Cor.  iii.  18. 

WHEN  Saint  Paul  wants  to  depict  the  vast 
variety  of  which  the  world  is  full,  it 
was  distinctly  as  a  variety  of  glory  that  he 
conceived  of  it.  Enough  he  knew  of  the  vari- 
ety of  woe.  Easily  enough  he  might  have  de- 
picted how  man,  the  same  man  still,  was  tossed 
from  suffering  to  suffering  and  remained  the 
same  identical  miserable  sufferer  in  all.  It 
would  have  been  the  same  truth  taught  upon 
its  darker  side.  But  Paul  knew  that  the  true 
side  on  which  to  teach  it  was  its  side  of  light. 
The  real  variety  of  life  is  a  variety  of  glories. 
Such  a  choice  of  the  side  from  which  to  draw 
his  illustration  is  a  noble  characteristic  of 
Saint  Paul,  It  is  a  sign  of  how  healthy  he  is. 
Change  from  glory  into  glory, — that  was  what 
life  seemed  to  him.  Remember,  it  is  no  rap- 
turous and  untired  boy  who  is  talking;  it  is  a 
man  all  sore  with  sorrow,  beaten  and  broken 
with  disappointment  and  distress.  Is  it  not  a 
sign  of  what  a  true  Christian  he  was  that  life 
seemed  to  him  still  to  be  only  a  variety  and 
constant  interchange  of  glories  ?  v.  62. 

"  From    glory    unto    glory  !  "       What    great 
things  He  hath  done!   .    .    . 

But  sweeter  than  the  Christmas  chimes  rings 
out  His  promise  clear — 

That  "  greater  things,"  far  greater,  our  long- 
ing eyes  shall  see! 

We  can   but  wait  and  wonder  what  "  greater 
things"  shall  be. 

Frances  R.  Havergal. 


JANUARY    5. 


*'  Comest  thou  as  friend  ? 
Comest  thou  as  foe  ?  " 

"  Nay,  'tis  thou  wilt  bend 
Me  to  weal  or  woe. 
As  thou  usest  me, 
Shall  I  be  to  thee 
Friend  or  foe." 

J.  L.  M.  W. 

T^HINGS  are  what  they  are  used  for.  .  .  . 
*  The  artist  uses  a  stone,  and  it  is  a  statue; 
the  mason  uses  a  stone,  and  it  is  a  doorstep. 
And  beyond  mere  nature.  See  how  we  use 
men.  We  are  each  other's  raw  material.  I 
make  you  up  in  some  shape  into  my  life,  and 
you  in  some  way  make  me  up  into  yours.  But 
what  man  is  of  so  fixed  a  character  that  he 
can  be  made  up  only  into  one  invariable  thing  ? 
Each  man  makes  of  his  neighbor  that  for  which 
he  uses  him.    .   .    . 

So  of  all  influences  and  motives.  The  same 
educations  wall  and  press  upon  two  lives.  One 
rises  on  them  into  greatness,  the  other  drags 
them  down  upon  it  and  is  crushed  beneath 
them  into  ruin.  .  .  .  How  is  it  that  the  Phari- 
see and  the  Publican  came  down  the  same 
temple  steps,  one  cold,  and  proud,  and  bitter, 
and  the  other  with  his  heart  full  of  tenderness, 
and  gratitude,  and  humblest  charity  ? 

VI.  25,  26. 


JANUARY    6. 


Shine  as  lights  in  the  world ;  Holding  forth  the 
word  of  life. — Phil.  ii.  15,  16. 

A  MAN'S  place  is  made  ready  for  him  in 
the  mind  of  God;  the  man's  life  is  set 
here  as  a  positive,  clear  fact;  and  what  comes 
next  ?  There  is  no  doubt  what  ought  to  come. 
That  life  must  tell.  It  must  go  out  beyond 
itself.  It  must  have  influence.  It  must  tes- 
tify and  supplement  the  mere  fact  of  its  exist- 
ence by  making  other  existences  be  something 
which  they  would  not  be  without  it.  This 
seems  so  plain.  This  is  so  clearly  set  forth  in 
the  great  typical  life  of  Jesus.  .  .  .  Can  you 
picture  to  yourself  God  coming  into  this  world 
and  then  living  a  perfectly  self-contained  life 
— one  that  recognized  no  relations  with  and 
exercised  no  power  over  other  lives  about 
Him  ?  No!  The  epiphany  followed  immedi- 
ately on  the  advent  and  the  nativity.  .  .  . 
He  let  His  life  go  forth  on  other  lives.  He 
let  His  great  light  shine  before  men.  But  how 
many  there  are  who  realize  their  advent  and 
their  nativity  who  have  never  conceived  for 
themselves  of  an  epiphany!  .  .  .  never  have 
dreamed  that  they  were  put  here  where  they 
are,  and  made  to  be  what  they  are,  in  order 
that  other  men  might  be  something  else  through 
them. 

VII.  8,  9. 

All  are  needed  by  each  one: 
Nothing  is  fair  or  good  alone. 

Emerson. 


JANUARY    7.  7 


The  Son  of  Man  came  not  to  be  ministered  untOy 
but  to  7ninistery  and  to  give  His  life  a  ra?isom  for 
many. — Mark  x.  45. 

THERE  are  theories  of  self-culture  which 
are  printed  in  books,  given  as  very  gos- 
pels to  our  children  as  they  grow  up,  which 
would  be  just  exactly  the  same  that  they  now 
are  if  no  such  dream  as  a  possible  duty  of  use- 
fulness and  influence  from  that  child  to  other 
people  had  ever  entered  into  the  thought  of  God 
or  man.  ...  "Be  strong,  be  rich,  be  wise, 
be  good."  What  for?  "Why,  so  that  you 
may  be  wise  and  rich  and  strong  and  good." 
The  endless  circle,  with  its  bright  monotonous 
round!  No  wonder  that  so  many  young  men 
are  asking  in  the  bottom  of  their  hearts  ques- 
tions of  most  terrible  skepticism:  "What  is 
the  use  ?  Is  it  worth  while  to  be  wise  and 
strong  and  rich  and  good  ?  "  Ah,  you  must 
find  the  use  outside  yourself.  You  must  let 
your  light  shine  before  fnen^  that  they  may 
see  your  good  works,  and  glorify  your  Father 
which  is  in  heaven.  You  must  complete  your 
advent  and  nativity  with  an  epiphany  of  your- 
self. Then  it  will  seem  well  worth  while  to 
light  your  human  light  most  brilliantly  and 
keep  it  trimmed  most  vigilantly. 

Only  shine  toward  your  brethren's  lives, 
only  be  your  best  in  their  direction. 

VII.  9,  10. 

What  others  claim  from  us  is  not  our  thirst  and  our 
hunger,  but  our  bread  and  our  gourd. 

Amiel. 


JANUARY    8. 


He  hath  7tiade  everything  beautiful  in  His  time. 

EccLES.  iii.  II. 

FOR  sin  and  holiness  are  not  in  things,  but 
in  souls;  and  all  things  are  beautiful  in 
the  time  when  a  soul  uses  them  for  holy  uses 
with  a  loving,  humble,  and  obedient  life.  ,  .  . 
The  human  soul  sits  at  the  centre  of  every- 
thing, and  Christ  sits  at  the  centre  of  the  hu- 
man soul.  If  HE  changes  us,  then  everything 
will  be  changed  to  us.  "  He  that  sitteth  upon 
the  throne  saith,  Behold  I  make  all  things 
new!  "  If  the  world  is  ugly  and  bitter  and 
cruel  to  you:  if  circumstances  taunt  and  per- 
secute you:  if  everything  you  touch  is  a  strain 
and  a  temptation,  do  not  stand  idly  wishing 
that  the  world  were  changed.  The  change 
must  be  in  you.  To  the  new  heart  all  things 
shall  be  new.  The  new  man  shall  see  already 
the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth.  If  any 
man  be  in  Christ,  he  is  a  new  creature;  and 
the  new  creature  is  immediately  in  the  new 
creation.  Some  of  you  know  already  by  daily 
experience  what  that  means.  And  for  all  of 
you,  it  waits  to  be  revealed,  if  you  will  let 
Christ  do  His  work  in  you.  iv.  261. 

There  is  a  rest  that  deeper  grows 

In  midst  of  pain  and  strife; 
A  mighty,  conscious,  willed  repose. 

The  heart  of  deepest  life. 
To  have  and  hold  the  precious  prize. 

No  need  of  jealous  bars, 
But  windows  open  to  the  skies, 

And  skill  to  read  the  stars. 

George  Macdonald. 


JANUARY    9. 


"  /^  TO  be  nothing,  nothing!  "  cries  the 
v^^  mystic  singer  in  his  revival  hymn, 
desiring  to  lose  himself  in  God.  "  Nay,  not 
that;  O,  to  be  something,  something,"  remon- 
strates the  unmystical  man,  longing  for  work, 
ardent  for  personal  life  and  character.  Where 
is  the  meeting  of  the  two  ?  How  shall  self- 
surrender  meet  that  high  self-value  without 
which  no  man  can  justify  his  living  and  honor 
himself  in  his  humanity  ?  Where  can  they  meet 
but  in  this  truth  ?  Man  must  be  something 
that  he  may  be  nothing.  The  something  which 
he  must  be  must  consist  in  simple  fitness  to 
utter  the  divine  life  which  is  the  only  original 
power  in  the  universe.  And  then  man  must 
be  nothing  that  he  may  be  something.  He 
must  submit  himself  in  obedience  to  God,  that 
so  God  may  use  him,  in  some  way  in  which 
his  special  nature  only  could  be  used,  to  illu- 
minate and  help  the  world.  Tell  me,  do  not 
the  two  cries  meet  in  that  one  aspiration  of 
the  Christian  man  to  find  his  life  by  losing  it 
in  God,  to  be  himself  by  being  not  his  own 
but  Christ's  ?  II.  ig. 

I  could  not  choose  a  larger  bliss 

Than  to  be  wholly  Thine;  and  mine 

A  will  whose  highest  joy  is  this. 
To  ceaselessly  unclasp  in  Thine. 

We  are  not  losers  thus;  we  share 
The  perfect  gladness  of  the  Son, — 

Not  conquered,  for,  behold,  we  reign, 
Conquered  and  Conqueror  are  one. 

Jean  Sophia  Pigott. 


JANUARY    lo. 


Son,  why  hast  thou  thus  dealt  with  us  ? 

Luke  ii.  48. 

WHO  is  there  of  us  that  is  not  aware  that 
his  soul  has  had  two  educations  ?  .  .  . 
Our  own  government  of  ourselves  is  most  evi- 
dent, is  the  one  which  we  are  most  aware  of, 
so  that  sometimes  for  a  few  moments  we  for- 
get that  there  is  any  other;  but  very  soon  our 
plans  for  ourselves  are  so  turned  and  altered 
and  hindered  that  we  cannot  ignore  the  other 
greater,  deeper  force.  We  meant  to  do  that, 
and  look!  we  have  been  led  on  to  this.  We 
meant  to  be  this,  and  lo!  we  are  that.  We 
never  meant  to  believe  this,  and  lo!  we  hold  it 
with  all  our  hearts.  What  does  it  mean  ?  It 
is  the  everlasting  discovery,  the  discovery 
which  each  thoughtful  man  makes  for  himself 
with  almost  as  much  surprise  as  if  no  other 
man  had  ever  made  it  for  himself  before,  that 
this  soul,  for  which  he  is  responsible,  is  not  his 
soul  only,  but  is  God's  soul  too.  The  revela- 
tion which  came  of  old  to  the  Virgm  Mother 
about  her  child — Not  your  child  only,  but 
God's  child  too;  yours,  genuinely,  really 
yours,    but    behind    yours,    and    over    yours, 

God's. 

IV.  36. 

Why    ever    make    man's    good    distinct    from 

God's? 
Or,  finding  they  are  one,  why  dare  mistrust  ? 

Browning. 


JANUARY    II.  II 


I  AM  often  struck  by  seeing  how  the  loftiness 
of  the  life  of  Jesus  altogether  escai)ed  the 
perplexity  of  many  of  the  questions  with  which 
our  lives  are  troubled,  as  the  eagle  flying 
through  the  sky  is  not  worried  how  to  cross 
the  rivers.  We  debate  whether  self  culture 
or  our  brethren's  service  is  the  true  purpose  of 
our  life.  We  vacillate  aimlessly.  .  .  .  We  are 
so  apt  to  live  two  lives.  But  Jesus  knows  but 
one.  All  culture  of  His  soul  is  a  part  of  our 
salvation.  All  doing  of  His  work  is  ripening 
His  nature.  .  .  .  And  not  until  our  brawling 
ceases  and  the  champion  of  each  side  of  the 
question  rounds  his  truth  with  his  adversary's 
truth  which  he  has  been  denouncing,  not  until 
the  apostle  of  self-culture  knows  that  no  man 
can  come  to  his  best  by  selfishness,  and  the 
apostle  of  usefulness  knows  that  no  man  can 
do  much  for  other  men  who  is  not  much  him- 
self,— not  until  then  shall  men  have  fairly 
started  on  the  broad  road  to  the  completeness 
of  God  their  Father  in  the  footsteps  of  the 
Son  of  Man. 

VIII.  109. 

Let  Christ  be  thy  Life; 

Let  Him  be  thy  Meditation  and  thy  Discourse; 

Let   Him  be  thy   Desire,  thy  Gain,  thy  whole 

Hope,  and  thy  Reward. 
If  thou  seekest  anything  but  God  jMirely,  thou 

wilt  suffer  loss; 
Thou  shalt  labor  and  shalt  find  no  rest. 

Thomas  a  Kempis. 


12  JANUARY    12. 

Words  divine,  and  prayers,  and  blessings, 
Sorrows,  sacraments,  and  alms. 
Humble  souls,  with  care  o'erwearied, 
Bended  knees  and  folded  palms, — 
These  are  working  wondrous  changes, 
Unperceived,  except  by  faith. 

Caroline  M.  Noel. 


THINK  how  with  the  successive  generations 
of  mankind,  each  leaving  countless  new 
monuments  of  divine  love  and  human  possi- 
bility upon  the  earth,  the  earth  itself  is  grow- 
ing richer  every  year.  Every  year  some  new 
valley  gets  its  consecration  from  some  new 
soul's  struggle  with  sin.  Every  year  some 
new  mountain-top  burns  with  another  soul's 
rapture  of  salvation.  We  read  of  the  prom- 
ise of  the  new  heavens  and  the  new  earth 
wherein  righteousness  shall  dwell.  Are  not 
the  heavens  and  the  earth  ever  growing  new, 
newer,  and  more  full  of  righteousness  every 
day  ?  When  the  time  shall  come  that  every 
star  in  heaven  and  every  stone  on  earth  shall 
be  vocal  with  some  word  of  God  which  it 
has  heard,  and  in  their  midst  shall  live  the 
race  of  men,  no  longer  deaf  and  obstinate, 
but  quick-eared  to  hear  and  loving-hearted  to 
obey  those  words  as  they  come  crowding  in, 
making  the  air  sacred  on  every  side — when 
that  shall  come,  shall  not  the  promise  then 
have  been  fulfilled,  and  the  "  New  Heavens 
and  the  New  Earth  wherein  dwelleth  right- 
eousness "  be  a  sublime  reality  ? 

VI.  275. 


JANUARY    13.  13 

Faith  is  the  sun  of  life;  and  her  countenance 

shines  Hke  the  Hebrew's, 
For  she  has  looked  upon  God. 

Longfellow. 

GOD  forbid  that  in  trying  to  make  faith 
seem  glorious,  I  should  make  it  seem 
impossible!  But  it  is  true  of  God's  gifts  al- 
ways that  the  most  complete  of  them  are  the 
most  possibly  universal,  .  .  .  To  be  loved  is 
better  than  to  be  admired;  and  admiration  is 
the  privilege  of  a  few  brilliant  natures,  while 
love  is  within  the  reach  of  any  pure  and  loving 
heart.  Art  is  the  privilege  of  the  few,  but 
nature  opens  her  treasures  wide.  ...  If  this 
be  so,  then  how  must  it  be  with  that  blessing 
which  outgoes  all  others — the  blessing  of  faith, 
the  blessing  of  living  under  the  perpetually 
recognized  lordship  of  Christ?  The  finest  of 
all  gifts  of  God — may  we  not  look  for  it  to  be 
the  freest  also  ?  Free  as  the  air,  which  is  the 
most  precious  thing  that  the  world  contains, 
and  yet  struggles  as  nothing  else  in  all  the 
world  struggles  to  give  itself  away. 

VI.  104,  105. 

At  the  devil's  mart  are  all  things  sold, 

Each  ounce  of  dross  costs  its  ounce  of  gold; 

For  a  cap  and  bells  our  lives  we  pay: 

Bubbles  we  earn  with  our  whole  soul's  task- 
ing; 
'Tis  only  God  that  is  given  away, 

'Tis  only  heaven  may  be  had  for  the  asking, 
James  Russell  Lowell. 


14  JANUARY    14. 


That  ye  might  believe  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ, 
the  Son  of  God ;  and  that  believing, ye  might  have 
life  through  His  name. — John  xx.  31. 

SUPPOSE  that  this  divinity  of  Jesus  be- 
comes part  of  a  man's  faith  .  .  .  suppose 
that  a  man  really  believes  that,  entering  into 
our  human  life,  God  has  been  here  upon  earth. 
What  will  that  belief  be  to  him  that  holds 
it  ?  .  .  .  The  question  answers  itself.  If  to 
believe  in  God  is  a  glory  and  delight,  the 
nearer  the  God  whom  I  believe  in  comes  to  me, 
the  more  glorious  and  delightful  grows  my  life. 
To  tread  an  earth  which  He  has  trodden,  to 
think  thoughts  and  to  feel  emotions  which,  just 
as  I  think  and  feel  them,  in  their  human  shapes. 
He  the  eternal  God  has  thought  and  felt — this 
is  assuredly  a  marvellous  enrichment  of  my 
living.  I  have  gone  out  and  up  into  a  new 
world  with  this  new  faith — a  new  world,  yet 
the  old  world  still;  the  old  world  teeming  and 
bursting  with  new  meanings,  radiant  with  new 
light,  sacred  and  beautiful  all  through  with 
the  remembered  presence  of  the  Son  of  God. 
Surely  no  man  who  has  once  known  what  it  is 
to  live  in  that  world  can  ever  turn  his  back 
upon  its  richness. 

VII.  329,  330. 

No  longer  is  our  life 

A  thing  unused  or  vain; 
To  us,  even  here,  to  live  is  Christ, 

To  us  to  die  is  gain. 

H  OR  ATI  us  BONAR. 


JANUARY    15.  15 

The  sun  shall  be  no  mo7'e  thy  light  by  day ; 

neither  for  brightness  shall  the  moon  give  light 

unto  thee  ;  but  the  Lord  shall  be  to  thee  an  ever- 
lasting light. — Is.  Ix.   19. 

THE  lives  of  men  who  have  been  always 
growing  are  strewed  along  their  whole 
course  with  the  things  which  they  have  learned 
to  do  without.  As  the  track  of  an  army 
marching  deep  into  an  enemy's  country  is 
scattered  all  along  with  the  equipage  which 
the  men  seemed  to  find  necessary  when  they 
started,  but  which  they  have  learned  to  do 
without  as  the  exigencies  of  their  march  grew 
greater,  and  they  found  that  these  provisions 
and  equipments  were  partly  such  as  they  did 
not  need  at  all,  and  partly  such  as  they  could 
gather  out  of  the  land  through  which  they 
marched;  so  from  the  time  when  theT  child 
casts  his  leading  strings  aside  because  his  legs 
are  strong  enough  to  carry  him  alone,  the 
growing  man  goes  on  forever  leaving  each  help 
for  a  higher,  until  at  last,  in  that  great  change 
to  which  Isaiah's  words  seem  to  apply,  he  can 
do  without  sun  and  moon  as  he  enters  into  the 
immediate  presence  and  essential  life  of  God. 

I.  283. 

I  say  that  man  was  made  to  grow,  not  stop; 
That  help,  he  needed  once  and  needs  no  more, 
Having  grown  but  an  inch  by,  is  withdrawn; 
For  he  hath  new  needs,  and  new  helps  to  these. 
This  imports  solely — man  should  mount  on  each 
New  height  in  view:  the  help  whereby  he  mounts, 
The  ladder-rung  his  foot  hath  left,  may  fall. 
Since  all   things  suffer  change  save  God,  the 
Truth.  Browning. 


i6  JANUARY    i6. 


HOLINESS  does  not  make  men  monotonous. 
The  dimmer  the  light  the  more  things 
look  alike.  Increase  the  light  and  then  you 
see  how  different  they  are.  Childhood  with  its 
bright  hopefulness,  and  manhood  with  its  en- 
terprise, and  womanhood  with  its  tenderness — 
each  grows  more  specially  itself  at  the  touch 
of  grace.  The  old  man  and  the  young  man, 
the  thinker,  the  artist,  the  worker,  the  mer- 
chant, the  doctor,  and  the  lawyer — out  of  each 
comes  up  to  the  surface  a  profounder  individu- 
ality when  they  all  begin  to  live  to  God.  And 
the  subtler  differences  which  distinguish  man 
from  man  and  woman  from  woman,  making 
each  being  a  separate  thought  of  God,  unlike 
any  other — these  become  clearer  as  the  idea  of 
God  in  the  creation  of  each  becomes  more 
fully  realized.  The  pebbles  lie  dull  and  dead 
and  all  gray  alike  in  the  dry  bed  of  the  brook 
till  with  the  spring  freshet  the  water  comes 
pouring  down  and  wets  them  all  alike  and 
brings  out  their  beautiful  variety  of  color  and 
makes  them  all  different. 

VII.  40. 

The  sunlight  takes  the  hue 
Of  whatsoever  shade  it  shineth  through, 
Crimson  or  blue; 
And  thus  we  find 
The   One  great  Light,   that  lighteth  all  man- 
kind, 
Taketh  a  varied  coloring  from  each  mind. 

Anna  E.  Hamilton. 


JANUARY    17.  17 

Whatever  He  saith  unto  you^  do  it. 

John  ii.  5. 

YOU  make  a  friend,  you  read  a  book,  you 
take  a  journey,  you  buy  a  house,  you 
write  a  letter,  and  so  full  is  the  great  world  of 
God,  so  is  He  waiting  everywhere  to  make 
Himself  known  and  to  give  Himself  away, 
that  through  this  act  of  yours,  to  men  who  are 
looking  and  listening,  there  comes  some  reve- 
lation of  His  nature  and  some  working  of  His 
power.  .  .  .  For  acts  have  their  true  meanings 
in  the  points  of  manifestation  and  operation 
which  they  give  to  God.  It  was  not  because 
she  knew  that  somehow  they  would  have  wine 
or  something  better,  it  was  because  her  Son 
would  surely  show  Himself  through  their  obe- 
dience, if  they  obeyed  Him,  that  Mary  cared 
what  these  servants  did.  It  is  strange  to 
think  what  a  dignity  and  interest  our  own 
actions  might  have  for  us  if  we  constantly 
recognize  this  capacity  in  them  which  they 
have  not  now.  We  play  with  bits  of  glass, 
finding  great  pleasure  in  their  pleasant  shapes, 
but  never  knowing  what  glorious  things  they 
would  be  if  we  held  them  up  and  let  the  sun 
shine  through  them. 

V.  346. 


O  Everlasting  Light, 

Shine  graciously  within! 
Brightest  of  all  on  earth  that's  bright. 

Come,  shine  away  my  sin! 

HORATIUS    BONAR. 


JANUARY    i8. 


Curse  ye  Meroz,  said  the  angel  of  the  Lord, 
.  .  .  because  they  came  not  to  the  help  of  the  Lord 
against  the  7nighty. — Judg.  v.  23. 

THE  sin  for  which  Meroz  is  cursed  is  pure 
inaction.  There  is  no  sign  that  its  peo- 
ple gave  any  aid  or  comfort  to  the  enem}^ 
They  merely  did  nothing.  We  hear  so  much 
about  the  danger  of  wrong  thinking  and  the 
danger  of  wrong  doing.  There  is  the  other 
danger,  of  not  doing  right  and  not  thinking 
right,  of  not  doing  and  not  thinking  at  all.  .  .  . 
Whenever  men  hide  behind  their  conscious 
feebleness;  whenever,  because  they  can  do  so 
little,  they  content  themselves  with  doing 
nothing;  whenever  the  one-talented  men  stand 
with  their  napkins  in  their  hands  along  the 
roadside  of  life, — there  is  Meroz  over  again. 
.  .  .  Grant  that  you  are  as  small  as  you  think 
you  are,  you  are  the  average  size  of  moral  and 
intellectual  humanity.  Let  all  the  Merozes  in 
the  land  be  humble  like  you,  and  where  shall 
be  the  army  ?  Only  when  men  like  you  wake 
up  and  shake  the  paralysis  of  their  humility 
away,  shall  we  begin  to  see  the  dawn  of  that 
glorious  millennium  for  which  we  sigh;  which 
will  consist  not  in  the  transformation  of  men 
into  angels,  nor  in  the  coming  forth  of  a  few 
colossal  men  to  be  the  patterns  and  the  cham- 
pions of  life,  but  simply  in  each  man,  through 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  great  world, 
doing  his  best.  II.  291,  298,  299. 

When  obstacles  and  trials  seem 

Like  prison  walls  to  be, 
I  do  the  little  I  can  do, 

And  leave  the  rest  to  Thee.         Faber. 


JANUARY    19.  19 

A?id  they  said  .  .  .  Let  not  God  speak  with  us, 
lest  we  die. — Ex.  xx.  19. 

IS  it  not  almost  as  if  the  fish  cried,  "  Cast  me 
not  into  the  water,  lest  I  drown,"  or  as  if 
the  eagle  said,  "  Let  not  the  sun  shine  on  me, 
lest  I  be  blind  "  ?  It  is  man  fearing  his  native 
element.  He  was  made  to  talk  with  God.  .  .  . 
We  find  a  revelation  of  this  in  all  the  deepest 
and  highest  moments  of  our  lives.  Have  you 
not  often  been  surprised  by  seeing  how  men 
who  seemed  to  have  no  capacity  for  such  ex- 
periences passed  into  a  sense  of  divine  com- 
panionship when  anything  disturbed  their  lives 
with  supreme  joy  or  sorrow  ?  Once  or  twice, 
at  least,  in  his  own  life,  almost  every  one  of 
us  has  found  himself  face  to  face  with  God, 
and  felt  how  natural  it  was  to  be  there.  Then 
all  interpreters  and  agencies  of  Him  have 
passed  away.  He  has  looked  in  on  us  di- 
rectly; we  have  looked  immediately  upon 
Him;  and  we  have  not  died, — we  have  su- 
premely lived.  We  have  known  that  we  never 
had  so  lived  as  then.  We  have  been  aware 
how  natural  was  that  direct  sympathy  and 
union  and  communication  with  God. 

V.  82. 

And  blest  are  they 
Who,  in  this  fleshly  world,  the  elect  of  Heaven, 
Their   strong   eye   darting  through   the  deeds 

of  men. 
Adore  with  steadfast,  unpresuming  gaze 
Him,  Nature's  essence,  mind,  and  energy. 

S.  T.  Coleridge. 


JANUARY    20. 


Acquaint   now   thyself  ivith    Hijn,  and  be   at 
peace  j  thei-eby  good  shall  come  unto  thee. 

Job  xxii.  21. 
nPHE  more  you  come  into  communion  with 
•^  God,  catch  His  spirit,  understand  His 
life;  the  more  quick  your  eye  becomes  to  de- 
tect the  spiritual  life  of  other  men  though  it 
be  hidden  under  the  strangest  forms,  the  more 
broad  your  heart  grows  to  embrace  it.  Com- 
ing to  love  God  is  like  climbing  a  high  moun- 
tain. It  takes  you  out  of  the  low  valley  of 
formal  life.  It  sets  you  upon  the  open  sum- 
mit of  spiritual  sympathy,  close  to  the  sun. 
Thence  you  look  out  into  unguessed  regions 
of  noble  thought  and  living,  with  which  you 
never  dreamed  that  you  had  anything  to  do. 
.  .  .  There  never  was  a  man  who  really  tried 
to  serve  God  who  did  not  have  his  sympathy 
with  his  fellow  men  widened  thereby. 

VII.  314. 

ON     THE     MOUNTAIN     TOP. 

Dear   world,  I   behold   but   your   largeness;  I 

forget  that  aught  evil  or  mean 
Ever  marred  the  vast  sphere  of  your  beauty, 

over  which  as  a  lover  I  lean. 
And  not  by  our  flaws  will  God  judge  us;  His 

love  keeps  our  noblest  in  sight: 
Dear  world,  our  low  life  sinks  behind  us;  we 

look  up  to  His  infinite  height. 

Lucy  Larcom. 


JANUARY    21.  21 


MEN  talk  as  if  because  Christ  is  the  same 
loving,  willing  Christ  for  all  of  us,  and 
all  of  us  are  nothing  and  can  have  nothing  but 
Him,  therefore  the  meagre,  mercenary  saint 
ought  to  shine  with  the  same  lustre  as  the  pure 
spirit  passionate  for  holiness,  and  ready  for 
all  the  completed  will  of  God.  As  if  one  said 
that  because  the  sun  is  the  same  sun  always, 
and  because  there  is  no  light  except  from  him, 
therefore  the  rose  and  the  daisy  ought  to  look 
alike.  No!  He  in  His  love  outgoes  our 
prayers.  He  gives  us  more  of  what  we  as-k 
than  we  know  how  to  ask  for;  more  beauty  to 
the  seeker  after  beauty,  more  wisdom  to  the 
student,  more  safety  to  the  poor  culprit  asking 
forgiveness.  And  He  is  always  trying  to  make 
the  self  which  asks  a  larger  self,  that  He  may 
give  it  other  things  of  higher  kinds.  But  yet 
the  truth  remains,  that  at  each  moment  He 
can  give  Himself  to  us  only  as  at  that  mo- 
ment we  give  ourselves  to  Him. 

III.  285. 


Higher,  purer,  deeper,  surer. 
Be  my  thought,  O  Christ,  of  Thee! 
Stretch  the  narrow  bounds  that  limit 
All  my  earth-born,  sin-bound  spirit 

To  the  breadth  of  Thy  divine. 

Be  the  image  purely  Thine, 
Not  my  thought,  but  Thy  creation; 

Deep  within  my  spirit's  shrine 
Make  the  secret  revelation; 

Reproduce  Thy  life  in  mine! 

Mrs.  Merrill  E.  Gates. 


JANUARY    22. 


ONE  man  approaches  the  divine  Redeemer 
asking  no  divine  redemption,  but  touched 
and  fascinated  by  the  beauty  of  that  perfect 
life.  He  would  feed  his  wonder,  he  would 
cultivate  his  taste,  upon  it.  .  .  .  Another  man 
comes  to  Jesus  with  a  self  that  is  all  alive  with 
curiosity.  He  takes  Christ's  revelations — for 
Christ  does  not  refuse  him  either — and  goes 
away  content  to  know  much  of  God  and  man, 
and  what  there  is  beyond  this  world.  .  .  .  Each 
gets  from  Jesus  that  which  the  nature  he 
brings  can  take.  .  .  .  Only  when  at  last  there 
comes  a  man  with  his  self  all  open,  with  door 
behind  door  all  unclosed,  ready  to  give  him- 
self entirely,  wanting  everything  that  Jesus 
has  to  give,  wanting  and  ready  to  take  the 
whole  of  Jesus  into  himself — only  then  are  the 
last  gates  withdrawn,  and  as  when  the  ocean 
gathers  itself  up  and  enters  with  its  tide  the 
open  mouth  of  the  river,  ...  so  does  the 
Lord  in  all  His  richness,  with  His  perfect 
standards.  His  mighty  motives,  His  infinite 
hopes,  give  Himself  to  the  soul  which  has 
been  utterly  given  to  Him.  iii.  284,  285. 

Lord,  we  are  rivers  running  to  Thy  sea. 
Our  waves  and  ripples  all  derived  from  Thee; 
A  nothing  we  should  have,  a  nothing  be. 
Except  for  Thee. 

Sweet  are  the  waters  of  Thy  shoreless  sea. 
Make  sweet  our    waters   that   make   haste  to 

Thee; 
Pour  in  Thy  sweetness,  that  ourselves  may  be 
Sweetness  to  Thee! 

Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


JANUARY    23.  23 

And  the  king  said,  Is  there  not  yet  any  .   .   . 
that  I  may  show  the  kindness  of  God  nnto  him  ? 

2  Sam.    ix.  3. 

HOW  shall  you  make  man  know  that  Gotl 
loves  him  ?  In  every  way, — there  is  no 
speech  nor  language  in  which  that  voice  may 
not  be  heard, — but  most  of  all  by  loving  the 
man  with  a  great  love  yourself,  by  a  lofty  and 
generous  affection  of  which  he  shall  know  that, 
coming  through  you,  it  comes  from  beyond 
you,  and  say,  "It  is  my  Father  that  my 
brother  utters,"  and  so  be  led  up  to  the 
Father's  heart.  We  talk  about  men's  reaching 
through  Nature"  up  to  Nature's  God.  It  is 
nothing  to  the  way  in  which  they  may  reach 
through  manhood  up  to  manhood's  God,  and 
learn  the  divine  love  by  the  human.  God 
make  us  all  such  revelations  of  His  love  to 
some  of  His  children! 

V.  50. 

For  by  human  lovings  climb  we 
(As  to  cause  from  consequence) 

To  some  dim,  imperfect  vision. 
To  some  awed  but  precious  sense 

Of  the  Love  of  love  whose  loving 
We  have  surnamed  "  Providence." 

Ah,  what  gladness  in  the  glory 

Of  the  better  land  to  know 
That  to  some  poor,  doubting,  fearing, 

Hungering,  thirsting  soul  below, 
All  unknowing,  in  our  loving, 

.Ve  the  love  of  God  did  show. 

J.  L.  M.  W. 


24  JANUARY    24. 

For  our  light  affliction^  which  is  but  for  a 
mofnent,  worketh  out  for  us  a  far  more  exceeding 
and  eternal  weight  of  glory  j  ivhile  we  look  not  at 
the  things  which  are  seen,  but  at  the  things  which 
are  ?iot  seen  :  for  the  things  which  are  seen  are 
temporal ;  but  the  things  which  are  not  seen  are 
eternal. — 2  Cor.  iv.  17,  18. 

OH,  the  next  life  seems  all  so  vague  to  us! 
We  reach  out  after  it.  We  believe  in  it, 
but  how  hard  it  is  for  us  to  take  hold  of  it! 
How  can  we  ?  Only  by  living  here  with  Him 
who  is  to  bring  us  there.  Only  by  growing  so 
familiar  with  Christ  that  when  He  outruns  us 
and  enters  in  behind  the  veil,  when  the  strings 
of  His  influence  outgo  our  mortal  state  and 
run  into  the  darkness,  we  may  still  feel  the 
tug  upon  them  from  beyond  the  darkness  and 
know  the  reality  of  heaven  because  our  Christ 
is  there.  By  constant  living  with  the  Eternal, 
so  only  can  you  realize  Eternity.    .   .   . 

To  welcome  all  His  leadings  now  so  cor- 
dially that  we  shall  know  our  Leader  when  He 
opens  the  last  great  door;  to  be  always  fol- 
lowing Him  so  obediently  that  we  shall  have 
faith  to  follow  Him  when  He  leads  us  into  the 
river  and  into  darkness, — this,  and  only  this, 
is  readiness  for  death.  VI.  185,  186. 

O  Lord  of  Light,  steep  Thou  our  souls  in  Thee, 
That  when  the  daylight  trembles  into  shade, 
And  falls  the  silence  of  mortality, 

And  all  is  done,  we  shall  not  be  afraid, 
But  pass  from  light  to  light;  from  earth's  dull 

-gleam 
Into  the  very  heart  and  heaven  of  our  dream. 
Richard  Watson  Gilder. 


JANUARY    25.  25 


A?id  suddenly  tJiet'e  shincd  round  about  him  a 
light  from  heaven  :  ...  And  he  trembling  and 
astonished  said,  Lord,  what  wilt  Thou  have  7ne  to 
do? — Acts  ix.  3,  6. 

WE  talk  so  much  about  confession  and 
forgiveness;  we  elaborate  their  theory 
so  much;  we  see  such  intricate  relations  of 
the  divine  and  human  natures  involved  in  the 
transaction,  that  we  almost  unconsciously 
transfer  the  long  train  of  thought  into  a  long 
period  of  time.  We  feel  as  if  that  result 
which  implies  so  much  spiritual  action  must 
be  reached  only  by  a  process  of  correspond- 
ingly prolonged  duration.  "  To  confess  and 
be  forgiven — that  is  the  work  of  months  and 
years,  of  a  whole  lifetime,"  we  declare.  .  .  . 
But  the  volcano  that  the  chemistry  of  years 
has  been  preparing  breaks  into  eruption  in  an 
hour.  The  blossom  that  the  patient  plant 
has  been  designing  for  a  century  bursts  into 
flower  in  a  single  night.  And  so  the  reconcili- 
ation of  a  soul  to  God,  which  it  has  been  the 
labor  of  the  ages  to  make  possible,  which 
dates  for  its  conception  back  to  the  dateless 
time  when  the  Lamb  was  slain  from  the  foun- 
dation of  the  world,  comes  to  its  completion 
in  the  sudden  meeting  of  a  soul  filled  with 
penitence  and  a  God  filled  with  mercy. 

vn.  184. 
As  to  Thy  last  Apostle's  heart 
Thy  lightning  glance  did  then  impart 

Zeal's  never-dying  fire, 
So  teach  us  on  Thy  shrine  to  lay 
Ou"  hearts,  and  let  them  day  by  day 
Intenser  blaze  and  higher.  Keble. 


26  JANUARY    26. 

Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone^  but  by  every 
word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God. 

Matt.  iv.  4. 


MAN  is  represented  as  feeding  on  the  words 
\  of  God,  and  every  word  of  God  must 
come  for  nurture  to  the  life  that  is  made  up 
of  many  parts.  How  splendid  the  figure  is! 
God  .  .  .  speaks  once:  "Let  the  earth  bring 
forth  grass,  the  herb  yielding  seed,  and  the 
fruit-tree  yielding  fruit."  And  as  He  spoke, 
those  words,  "  proceeding  out  of  the  mouth 
of  the  Lord,"  were  caught  by  the  quick,  obe- 
dient ground  of  Genesis,  and  became  the  power 
by  which  the  physical  life  of  man  in  all  his 
generations  has  been  nourished.  .  .  .  Again, 
He  speaks  out  of  some  Sinai  mountain,  or 
out  of  that  Sinai  of  the  inner  life,  our  con- 
science. "  Do  this,"  He  says,  "  and  live," 
laying  down  duty  after  duty,  which  the  moral 
nature  takes  to  itself  and  feeds  upon,  and 
grows  by  them  into  rectitude  and  strength. 
And  then,  last  of  all,  to  the  highest  life  of 
all.  He  utters  His  sublimest  voice.  What  shall 
we  say  that  last  word  is  by  which  He  utters 
Himself  to,  on  which  He  feeds,  man's  deep 
religious  nature  ?  What  can  it  be  but  that 
eternal  "  Word"  which  was  in  the  beginning 
with  God,  which  was  God,  which  was  made 
flesh,  and  dwelt  among  us;  that  bread  of  life 
which  came  down  from  heaven,  of  which  a  man 
may  eat  and  never  die;  the  fulness  of  divine 
utterance  in  the  world's  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ  ? 

vn.  155,  156. 


JANUARY    27.  27 


T^HE  real  life,  what  is  it  ?  Is  it  the  wretched, 
*  sordid  details  of  earthly  living,  unin- 
spired by  a  single  suggestion  that  in  their  mud 
and  mire  there  are  the  seeds  of  any  spiritual, 
transcendent  fruit  or  flower  ?  On  the  other 
hand,  is  the  real  life  a  vision  of  some  expe- 
rience beyond  the  stars  which  has  no  connec- 
tion with  the  dreariness  and  degradation  of 
many  of  the  mortal  conditions  which  it  has 
passed  through  and  left  behind  ?  Not  so. 
The  real  life  of  a  man  is  his  highest  attainment 
kept  in  perpetual  association  with  the  meanest 
and  commonest  experience  out  of  which  it  has 
been  fed.  When  men  shall  so  write  and  paint 
the  lives  of  one  another,  then  we  shall  have 
the  true  realism, — a  realism  in  which,  to  use 
the  Psalmist's  words,  "  Truth  shall  flourish 
out  of  the  earth  and  Righteousness  look  down 
from  Heaven." 

VI.  226. 


Natural  things 
And  spiritual ; — who  separates  these  two 
In  art,  in  morals,  or  the  social  drift. 
Tears    up    the    bond    of    nature,    and    brings 

death  .   .   . 
Leads  vulgar  days,  deals  ignorantly  with  men, 
Is  wrong,  in  short,  at  all  points. 

Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning. 


28  JANUARY    28. 

For  we  can  do  nothing  against  the  truths  but  for 
the  truth. — 2  Cor.  xiii.  8. 


THERE  is  an  absolute  truth  about  every- 
thing, something  which  is  certainly  the 
fact  about  that  thing,  entirely  independent  of 
what  you  or  I  or  any  man  may  think  about  it. 
No  man  on  earth  may  know  that  fact  correctly 
— but  the  fact  exists.  It  lies  behind  all  blunders 
and  all  partial  knowledges,  a  calm,  sure,  un- 
found  certainty,  like  the  great  sea  beneath  its 
waves,  like  the  great  sky  behind  its  clouds. 
God  knows  it.  It  and  the  possession  of  it 
makes  the  eternal  difference  between  God's 
knowledge  and  man's. 

It  is  a  beautiful  and  noble  faith  when  a  man 
thus  believes  in  the  absolute  truth,  unfound, 
unfindable  perhaps  by  man,  and  yet  surely  ex- 
istent behind  and  at  the  heart  of  everything. 
It  is  a  terrible  thing  when  a  man  ceases  to  be- 
lieve in  it,  and  ceases  to  seek  for  it. 

VI.   210. 


Seek,  then,  now,  O   my  soul,  so   singular  and 

so  supereminent  a  Good. 
As  long  as  thou  art  in  the  flesh,  cease  not  to 

seek ; 
Since  that  can  never  be  sought  enough,  which 
can  never  be  grasped  to  the  full. 

Thomas  a  Kempis. 

Jesus  saith  unto  him,  I  am  .   .  .   the  Truth, 

John  xiv.  6. 


JANUARY    29.  29 

CONSIDER  what  would  be  the  idea  of 
Christ  and  His  relation  to  the  world 
which  we  should  get  if  this  were  all  we  knew 
of  Him, — if  He  as  yet  had  told  us  nothing  of 
Himself  but  what  is  wrapped  up  in  these  rich 
and  simple  words,  "  I  am  the  ].ight  of  the 
World,"  "I  am  the  Light  of  Life."  They 
send  us  instantly  abroad  into  the  world  of 
Nature.  They  set  us  on  the  hill-top  watching 
the  sunrise  as  it  fills  the  east  with  glory.  They 
show  us  the  great  plain  Qooded  and  beaten 
and  quivering  with  the  noon-day  sun.  They 
hush  and  elevate  us  with  the  mystery  and 
sweetness  and  suggestiveness  of  the  evening's 
glow.  There  could  be  no  image  so  abundant 
in  its  meaning;  no  fact  plucked  from  the  world 
of  Nature  could  have  such  vast  variety  of  truth 
to  tell;  and  yet  one  meaning  shines  out  from 
the  depth  of  the  figure  and  irradiates  all  its 
messages.  They  all  are  true  by  its  truth. 
What  is  that  meaning  ?  It  is  the  essential 
richness  and  possibility  of  the  world  and  its 
essential  belonging  to  the  sun. 

V.  2. 


O  only  Lord  God,  Father  of  lig^hts  and  Maker  of  dark- 
ness, send  forth  Thy  H.^lit  and  Thy  truth  that  they  may 
lead  us  through  dimness  of  tilings  seen  to  clarity  of  things 
unseen:  For  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ's  sake,  the  Light  of 
the  world.     Amen. 

Christina  Rossetti. 


30  JANUARY    30. 


/  am  the  Light  of  the  world. — John  viii.  12. 

A  THOUSAND  subtle,  mystic  miracles  of 
deep  and  intricate  relationship  between 
Christ  and  humanity  must  be  enfolded  in  those 
words;  but  over  and  behind  and  within  all 
other  meanings,  it  means  this, — the  essential 
richness  and  possibility  of  humanity  and  its  es- 
sential belonging  to  Divinity.  .  .  .  The  truth 
is  that  every  higher  life  to  which  man  comes, 
and  especially  the  highest  life  in  Christ,  is  in 
the  true  line  of  man's  humanity;  there  is  no 
transportation  to  &  foreign  region.  There  is 
the  quickening  and  fulfilling  of  what  man  by 
the  very  essence  of  his  nature  is.  The  more 
man  becomes  irradiated  with  Divinity,  the 
more,  not  the  less,  truly  he  is  man.  The  fullest 
Christian  experience  is  simply  the  fullest  life. 
To  enter  into  it  therefore  is  nowise  strange. 
The  wonder  and  the  unnaturalness  is  that  any 
child  of  God  should  live  outside  of  it,  and  so 
in  all  his  life  should  never  be  himself. 

V.  4,  6. 


'Tis  He,  as  none  other  can, 

Makes  free  the  spirit  of  man, 

And  speaks,  in  darkest  night, 

One  word  of  awful  light 

That  strikes  through  the  dreadful  pain 

Of  life  a  reason  sane — 

That  word  divine  which  brought 

The  universe  from  nought. 

Richard  Watson  Gildkr. 


JANUARY   31.  31 


There  is  no  powe7' hut  of  God. — Rom.  xiii.  i. 

WHERE  does  the  power  come  from?" 
is  the  natural  question  always  when 
we  are  watching  any  strong  effect.  "Where 
did  it  begin?"  we  curiously  ask  as  we  stand 
by  the  side  of  any  process  and  watch  its  steady 
flow.  .  .  .  Such  search  for  the  seats  of  origi- 
nal power  is  among  the  first  instincts  and  the 
keenest  pleasures  of  the  human  mind.  And 
when  such  a  source  of  power  is  found,  then 
the  human  soul  bows  down  before  it  and  pours 
out  its  reverence.  All  idolatry  is  merely  the 
giving  to  some  secondary  cause  that  virtue 
and  regard  which  can  belong  only  to  the  High- 
est and  First  Cause:  to  worship  the  sun  in- 
stead of  the  God  who  makes  him  shine;  to 
deify  a  hero  or  sage  into  the  place  of  the  God 
who  makes  him  brave  or  wise;  to  glorify  an 
abstract  virtue  until  it  sits  cloudily  in  the 
place  of  the  distinct  personal  God  in  whose 
nature  all  virtue  has  its  being — these  are  the 
great  types  in  which  idolatry  has  prevailed 
among  mankind.  And  to-day  the  man  who  is 
looking  to  his  money  or  his  education  or  his 
good  repute  or  his  family  for  the  satisfaction 
and  the  culture  which  God  gives  us  through 
them  all,  but  which  neither  of  them  gives  us 
of  and  by  itself,  he  is  the  modern  idolater. 
He,  like  all  the  idolaters  of  old,  has  cut  the 
channels  of  life  off  from  the  source  of  life, 
and  sits  with  his  thirsty  lips  pressed  to  their 
dry  mouths,  getting  no  real  refreshment,  how- 
ever he  may  delude  himself.  vil.  35,36. 

lliese  are  ivells  without  water. — 2  Pet.  ii.  17. 


32  FEBRUARY    i, 


To  be  spiritually  minded  is  life  a  fid  peace. 

ROiM.  viii.  6. 

"  T  HAVE  no  spiritual  capacity,"  says  one. 
1  "  It  is  not  in  me  to  be  a  saint,"  another 
cries.  "  I  have  a  covetous  soul,  I  cannot 
live  except  in  winning  money."  '*  I  can  make 
many  sacrifices,  but  I  cannot  give  up  my 
drink."  "  I  can  do  many  things,  but  I  cannot 
be  reverent."  So  the  man  talks  about  him- 
self. Poor  creature,  does  he  think  that  he 
knows,  down  to  its  centre,  this  wonderful 
humanity  of  his  ?  It  all  sounds  so  plausible  and 
is  so  untrue!  .  .  .  How  can  he  know  what 
lurking  power  lies  packed  away  within  the 
never-opened  folds  of  this  inactive  life  ?  Has 
he  ever  dared  to  call  himself  the  child  of  God, 
and  for  one  moment  felt  what  that  involves  ? 
Has  he  ever  attacked  the  task  which  demands 
those  powers  whose  existence  he  denies,  or 
tried  to  press  on  into  the  region  where  those 
evil  things  cannot  breathe  which  he  compla- 
cently declares  are  an  inseparable  portion  of 
his  life  ?  VI.  69. 

Oh,  there  are  heavenly  heights  to  reach 

In  many  a  fearful  i:)lace 
Where  the  poor  timid  heir  of  God 

Lies  blindly  on  his  face, — 

Lies  languishing  for  light  divine, 

That  he  shall  never  see 
Till  he  go  forward  at  Thy  sign, 

And  trust  himself  to  Thee. 

Whittier. 


FEBRUARY    2.  ^s 


And  the  Child  greiv,  and  ivaxed  strong  in  spirit, 
filled  with  wisdo7n  ;  and  the  grace  of  God  was 
upon  him. — Luke  ii.  40. 

'"THE  evident  design  of  God's  creation,  the 
*  comprehensive  form  of  the  incarnation, 
the  clear  presence  in  children  of  the  power  of 
and  the  need  of  religion,  these  are  the  forces 
which,  in  spite  of  every  tendency  of  the 
grown  people  to  make  children  wait  till  they 
grow  up,  has  always  kept  alive  a  hope,  a 
trust,  however  blind,  that  a  child's  religion 
was  a  possible  reality;  that  a  child  might  serve 
and  love  and  live  for  God.  .  .  .  Hi^  are  the 
years  when  one  can  really  believe  in  ideals. 
God  can  stand  out  before  him,  awful,  yet 
dear.  .  .  .  No  doubt  of  God's  faithfulness,  no 
questioning  of  His  ways  comes  in  to  cloud  the 
perfectly  unspotted  adoration.  How  good  it 
is  that  there  are  years  at  the  beginning  of  every 
life  when  it  is  the  most  easy  thing  to  believe 
in  absolute  right  and  goodness! 

IV.  136,  137. 

How  good  a  thing  is  feeling — admiration  !  It  is  the 
bread  of  angels,  the  eternal  food  of  cherubim  and  sera- 
phim. 

Am  I  EL. 


34  FEBRUARY    3. 


MAN  never  is  sent  into  the  world,  and  bid- 
den to  evolve  out  of  his  own  being  the 
conditions  in  which  he  is  to  Hve.  Always 
there  is  something  before  him.  .  .  .  The  food 
is  before  the  hunger,  and  says,  "I  have  waited 
for  you  to  come."  The  river  is  before  the 
thirst.  Beauty  was  in  the  sky  and  on  the  hills 
before  the  eye  was  fashioned.  Music  was 
breathing  on  the  winds  before  the  ear  was 
framed.  Fragrance  was  in  the  violet  and  the 
forest  before  the  nostrils  came  to  catch  its 
odor.  The  picture  was  before  the  imagi- 
nation which  discerned  it;  the  sea  before  the 
ship  that  sailed  it.  Man  finds  the  rocks 
waiting  with  their  problems,  frost  and  heat 
holding  their  inspiration  and  their  comfort  in 
expectation  of  his  coming.  And  he  never 
says,  "  Here  I  am,"  that  the  servants  do  not 
stand  in  ranks  at  the  door  of  his  great  home- 
stead to  welcome  the  heir  into  his  own,  and 
to  pledge  him  their  obedient  service.  The 
material  is  background  for  the  spiritual, — the 
earth,  which  is  body,  for  man,  who  is  soul. 

V.  41. 


For  us  the  winds  do  blow; 

The  earth  doth  rest,  heaven  move,  and  foun- 
tains flow. 
Nothing  we  see  but  means  our  good, 

As  our  delight,  or  as  our  treasure: 
The  whole  is  either  our  cupboard  of  food. 

Or  cabinet  of  pleasure. 

George  Herhert. 


FEBRUARY   4.  35 


To  ivhom  shall  we  go  ?     Thou  hast  the  words 
of  eternal  life. — John  vi.  68. 

IF  a  soul  has  many  doubts  and  bewilderments 
about  Christ,  and  yet  knows  that  there  is 
a  Saviour,  and  that  that  Saviour's  home  is  in 
the  land  of  righteousness  and  truth,  then  to 
that  land  of  righteousness  and  truth  that  soul 
will  go  by  any  road  that  it  can  find,  eager  to 
get  there,  seeking  a  road,  pressing  through 
difficulties,  that  it  may  be  in  the  same  country 
with,  and  somewhere  near,  its  unfound  Lord. 
It  may  be  that  the  clouds  that  for  us  mortals 
haunt  that  land  of  righteousness  and  truth 
may  long  hang  so  thick  and  low  that  living 
close  to  Him  the  soul  may  still  fail  to  see  Him, 
but  some  day  certainly  the  fog  shall  rise,  the 
cloud  shall  scatter,  and  in  the  perfect  enlight- 
enment of  the  other  life  the  soul  shall  see  its 
Lord,  and  be  thankful  for  every  darkest  step 
that  it  took  towards  Him  here. 

VI.  150. 


I  felt  like  one  upon  his  journey  brought 

By  ways    he   knows   not   of;    these   pathways 

dim 
Had  ever  seemed  their  promised  end  to  cheat, 

Yet  had  they  led  to  Him 
In  whom  life's  tangled,  broken  threads  com- 
plete 
Are  gathered  up,  its  wasted  things  made  meet 
For  holier  use,  its  roughness  smoothed,  its  bit- 
ter turned  to  sweet. 

DUKA  Greenwkll. 


36  FEBRUARY    5. 

Come  and  see. — John  i.  46. 

EVERYWHERE  this  invitation  rings 
through  the  world.  True,  the  sight  which 
we  send  out  in  answer  to  the  invitation  must 
be  the  large  use  of  all  our  faculties.  Not 
merely  the  outward  eye  must  see,  the  mind 
must  see  as  well.  It  is  not  answering  the 
whole  invitation  unless  the  whole  man  goes 
and  sees  with  all  his  powers  of  vision.  The 
eye  sees  phenomena;  the  soul  sees  causes  un- 
derlying and  connecting  the  phenomena.  We 
must  not  stop  merely  with  what  the  eye  sees, 
and,  having  written  down  the  facts  we  have 
discovered,  call  that  the  all  of  science,  and 
brand  all  beyond  as  superstition.  It  is  not 
superstition,  not  prejudice,  but  science  still, 
spiritual  science,  when  the  mind  sees  a  causal 
will,  out  of  which  all  phenomena  proceed,  and 
the  heart  feels  a  mighty  love  beating  through 
all  the  ordered  system.  It  is  not  well  to  live 
and  see  only  from  the  eyes  and  brain  outward. 

VI.  138. 


Look  down  in  pity.  Lord,  we  pray. 
On  eyes  oppressed  by  moral  night. 

And  touch  the  darkened  lids,  and  say 

The  gracious  words,  "  Receive  thy  sight! 

Then  in  clear  daylight,  shall  we  see 
Where  walks  the  sinless  Son  of  God; 

And,  aided  by  new  strength  from  Thee, 
Press  onward  in  the  path  He  trod. 

Bryant. 


FEBRUARY    6.  37 

IVe  love  Hitn  because  He  first  loved  us. 

I  John  iv.  19. 

TO  know  that  long  before  I  cared  for  Him, 
He  cared  for  me;  that  while  I  wandered 
up  and  down  in  carelessness,  perhaps  while  I 
was  plunging  deep  in  flagrant  sin,  God's  eye 
was  never  off  me  for  a  moment.  He  was  always 
watching  for  the  instant  when  His  hand  might 
touch  me  and  His  voice  might  speak  to  me, — 
there  is  nothing  which  can  appeal  to  a  man 
like  that.  The  man  is  stone  whom  that  does 
not  appeal  to.  When,  touched  by  the  knowl- 
edge of  that  untiring  love,  a  man  gives  himself 
at  last  to  God,  every  act  of  loving  service 
which  he  does  afterwards  is  fired  and  colored 
by  the  power  of  gratitude,  surprised  gratitude, 
out  of  which  it  springs.  How  shall  he  over- 
take this  love  which  has  so  much  the  start  of 
him  ?  This  is  what  makes  his  service  eager 
and  enthusiastic.  It  is  a  "  reasonable  service, ' ' 
justified  by  the  sublime  reason  of  the  soul 
which  loves  its  God  because  He  first  loved  it. 

V.  54. 

Because  Thy  love  hath  sought  me. 
All  mine  is  Thine,  and  Thine  is  mine; 

Because  Thy  love  hath  bought  me, 
I  will  not  be  mine  own,  but  Thine. 

I  lift  my  heart  for  Thy  heart, — 

Thy  heart  sole  resting-place  for  mine: 

Shall  Thy  heart  crave  for  my  heart. 

And  shall  not  mine  crave  back  for  Thine? 
Christina  Rossetti. 


38  FEBRUARY    7. 


Let  the  peace  of  God  7'ule  in  your  hearts. 

Col.  iii.  15. 

T^HAT  peace  cannot  come  in  this  life,  you 
^  say.  But  I  do  not  know.  There  have 
been  men  and  women  with  lives  so  calm  and 
high  that  they  seemed  to  have  reached  it,  even 
on  this  tumultuous  earth.  Hardly  a  flake  of 
spray  from  the  storm  below  them  ever  seemed 
to  dash  up  and  wet  their  steadfast  and  placid 
feet.  But  whether  it  can  come  in  this  life  or 
not,  the  struggle  for  it  makes  the  two  lives 
one.  Already  to  him  who  is  working  towards 
it,  part  of  its  peace  is  given.  The  rock  runs 
out  under  the  sea,  and  your  feet  may  be  firm 
upon  it  even  while  the  waves  are  still  breast 
high. 

Such  be  the  peace  in  Christ  which  shall 
make  all  of  our  lives  strong  through  all  their 
struggle,  until  at  last  we  enter  into  that  rest 
which  remaineth  for  the  people  of  God. 

VI.  127. 

No  clouds  of  care  that  gather, 

No  waves  of  sin  that  toss, 
No  blasts  of  desolation, 

No  blight,  no  strife,  no  loss. 
Shall  break  the  mystic  circle 

Of  that  enshrining  peace 
Which  round  the  steadfast  spirit 

Doth  grow,  and  doth  not  cease. 

J.  L.  M.  W. 


FEBRUARY    8.  39 

WHAT  is  it  in  theliighest  sense  to  do  what 
all  men  try  to  do  in  some  sense,  to  get 
a  living  ?  Those  words  are  very  lightly  used, 
and  narrowed  down  to  very  insignificant 
dimensions.   .   ,   . 

Breathing  is  not  life,  thought  is  not  life, 
duty  is  not  life.  The  perfect  life  includes 
them  all.  No  man  is  thoroughly,  that  is, 
through  and  through,  alive  unless  from  end 
to  end  of  his  capacity  that  capacity  is  full. 
Complete  life  involves  the  conception  of  a 
body  with  every  power  perfect,  a  mind  with 
every  ability  active,  a  conscience  that  never 
swerves  from  purity,  a  spirit  that  reaches  to 
and  fastens  itself  on  God.  Everything  short 
of  that  is  stagnated,  impeded,  partial  life. 
To  complete  that  high  result  is  what  a  man 
ought  to  mean  when  he  talks  about  "getting 
a  living."  Is  it  not  one  of  the  mortifying 
things,  dear  friends,  to  take  now  and  then 
these  words  that  we  are  using  every  day  so 
lightly  and  see  how  much  tjiey  really  mean; 
to  wipe  through  the  dust  and  rust  that  are  on 
these  coin-words,  which  constant  friction  has 
worn  so  smooth  and  unimpressive,  and  look 
upon  the  royal  image  and  superscription  that 
is  on  them  ?  VII.  152,  154. 

There  is  no  end  to  the  sky. 

And  the  stars  are  everywhere. 
And  time  is  eternity, 

And  the  here  is  over  there; 
For  the  common  deeds  of  the  common  day 
Are  ringing  bells  in  the  far-away. 

Henry  Burton. 


40  FEBRUARY    9. 

ALL  history  of  man  bears  witness  that  man, 
though  himself  finite,  demands  infinity 
to  deal  with  and  to  rest  upon.  What  truly 
enthusiastically  human  man  will  tolerate  the 
drawing  of  any  line,  however  far  away,  out- 
side of  which  he  shall  be  bound  to  believe 
that  human  enterprise  shall  never  go  ?  Who 
will  let  any  limit  mark  for  him  the  certain 
boundary  beyond  which  no  yet  more  wonder- 
ful invention  shall  be  devised,  and  no  yet  more 
beautiful  miracle  of  art  flower  out  of  the  rich 
ground  of  man's  exhaustless  fancy  ?  What 
man  ever  truly  loves  and  sets  a  limit,  con- 
sciously and  absolutely,  to  the  loveliness  of 
that  which  he  is  loving  ?  The  love  that  de- 
fines the  limits  of  its  idol's  loveliness  is  not 
entire  love;  pure  love  lives  in  its  power  of 
idealizing,  and  loves  the  infinite  in  the  finite 
type  to  which  it  gives  its  homage.  So  every- 
where there  comes  the  testimony  of  this  end- 
less reach  of  man  after  the  infinite,  and  of 
his  inability  to  rest  upon  anything  less. 

III.  120. 


The  saints'  good  days 
Are  good,  because  the  good  Lord  lays 
No  bound  of  shore  along  the  sea 
Of  beautiful  Eternity. 

Helen  Hunt  Jackson. 


FEBRUARY    to.  41 


A  peasant  may  believe  as  much 

As  a  great  clerk,  and  reach  the  highest  stat- 
ure: 
Thus  dost  Thou  make  proud  knowledge  bend 
and  crouch, 
While  grace  fills  up  uneven  nature. 

Geor{;e  Herbert. 

NO  man  grows  good  by  mere  increase  of  in- 
tellectual development.  Look  at  the 
melancholy  record  of  the  private  lives  of 
many  of  the  most  brilliant  thinkers  and  schol- 
ars. Look  at  the  dissoluteness  of  the  bad, 
bright  times  of  Greek  or  Roman  culture.  .  .  . 
As  powerless  as  is  the  mere  training  of  the 
body  to  educate  the  mind,  or  the  culture  of 
the  mind  to  reform  the  morals,  so  utterly  hope- 
less is  it  that  any  man  living  under  God's  in- 
evitable laws  should  grow  by  the  mere  strug- 
gle of  moral  rectitude  into  that  condition  of 
resemblance  and  spiritual  nearness  to  God 
which  we  mean  when  we  speak  of  a  man's 
being  holy.  That  high  estate,  the  abiding  of 
the  divine  life  in  the  human  soul — you  must 
set  it  down  as  the  first  truth  of  your  religion 
— can  be  ever  reached  only  by  the  personal 
acceptance  of  that -means  by  which  it  was  first 
and  forever  typified — the  indwelling  of  the 
Divine  in  the  human  in  the  great  representa- 
tive miracle  of  spiritual  history,  the  Incarna- 
tion of  Jesus  Christ.  VII.  157. 

I  say,  the  acknowledgement  of  God  in  Christ, 
Accepted  by  thy  reason,  solves  for  thee 
All  questions  in  the  earth  and  out  of  it. 
And  ha.5t.  so  far  advanced  thee  to  be  wise. 

Browning. 


42  FEBRUARY    ii. 

So  speak  je,  and  so  do,  as  they  that  shall  be 
judged  by  the  law  of  liberty. — James  ii.  12. 

THE  freeing  of  souls  is  the  judging  of  souls. 
A  liberated  nature  dictates  its  own  des- 
tiny. .  .  .  Look  at  Christ,  and  see  [this  truth] 
in  perfection.  His  was  the  freest  life  man  ever 
lived.  Nothing  could  bind  Him.  He  walked 
across  old  Jewish  traditions  and  they  snapped 
like  cobwebs.  He  acted  upon  the  divinity  that 
was  in  Him  up  to  the  noblest  ideal  of  liberty. 
But  was  there  no  compulsion  in  His  working? 
Hear  Him:  "  I  must  be  about  my  Father's  busi- 
ness." Was  it  no  compulsion  that  drove  Him 
those  endless  journeys,  footsore  and  heartsore, 
through  His  ungrateful  land  ?  "I  must  work 
to-day."  What  slave  of  sin  was  ever  driven  to 
his  wickedness  as  Christ  was  to  holiness  ?  What 
force  ever  drove  a  selfish  man  into  his  voluptu- 
ous indulgence  with  half  the  irresistibility  that 
forced  the  Saviour  to  the  cross?  O  my  dear 
friends,  who  does  not  dream  for  himself  of  a 
freedom  as  complete  and  as  inspiring  as  the 
Lord's  ?  Who  does  not  pray  that  he  too  may 
be  ruled  by  such  a  sweet  despotic  law  of 
liberty  ?  II.  197,  igS. 

O  voice  of  Duty,  still 

Speak  forth:   I  hear  with  awe; 

In  thee  I  own  the  sovereign  Will, 
Obey  the  sovereign  law. 

Thou  higher  voice  of  Love! 

Yet  speak  thy  word  in  me; 
Through  Duty  let  me  upward  move 

To  thy  pure  liberty! 

3AMUEL  Longfellow, 


FEBRUARY    12.  43 

Abraham  Lincoln  born,  1809. 

r^  REAT  men  are  in  the  world  what  the  most 
^-*  enlightened  and  exalted  experiences  are 
in  the  life  of  any  man.  They  are  the  mountain- 
tops  on  which  the  influences  which  are  after- 
ward to  fertilize  our  whole  humanity  have 
birth.  There  stands  out  some  great  pattern  of 
unselfishness;  some  martyr-life  which  totally 
forgets  itself  and  lives  in  suffering  self-sacrifice 
for  fellow-men.  About  that  man's  life  gathers 
an  utterance,  an  exhibition,  of  the  glory  of  self- 
sacrifice — of  how  it  is  the  true  life  of  mankind, 
of  how  in  it  alone  man  becomes  truly  man. 
Does  all  that  abide  in  him,  live  and  die  in  his 
single  personality  ?  Does  it  disappear  forever 
in  the  withering  flames  which  consume  him  at 
the  stake  ?  Does  not  that  fire  set  it  free,  cast 
it  forth  into  the  atmosphere  of  the  universal 
human  nature,  and  make  it  the  possession  of 
all  mankind  ?  Have  not  you  and  I  the  power 
to  live  more  unselfishly  to-day  because  of  the 
unselfishness  of  the  great  monumental  lives 
of  devotion  ? 

VII;  344- 

As  thrills  of  long-hushed  tone 
Live  in  the  viol,  so  our  souls  grow  fine 
With  keen  vibrations  from  the  touch  divine 

Of  noble  natures  gone. 

James  Russell  Lowell. 


44  FEBRUARY    13. 


Heroes  are  the  mortal  pipes 

Thorough  which  God's  breath  doth  blow; 
Little  care  they  how  they  strain 

If  aright  the  tune  doth  go.      j.  l.  M.  W. 

IDEALITY,  magnanimity,  and  bravery, — 
these  are  what  make  the  heroes.  These 
are  what  glorify  certain  lives  that  stand 
through  history  as  the  lights  and  beacons  of 
mankind.  The  materialist,  the  sceptic,  and 
the  coward,  he  cannot  be  a  hero.  We  talk 
sometimes  about  the  unheroic  character  of 
modern  life.  We  point  to  our  luxurious  living 
for  the  reason.  But,  oh,  my  friends,  it  is  not  in 
your  costly  houses  and  your  sumptuous  tables 
that  your  unheroic  lives  consist.  It  is  in  the 
absence  of  great  inspiring  ideas,  of  generous 
enthusiasms,  and  of  the  courage  of  self-forget- 
fulness.  .  .  .  Do  not  blame  a  mere  accident 
for  that  which  lies  so  much  deeper.  There  are 
moments,  when  you  bear  your  sorrows,  when 
you  resist  a  great  temptation,  when  your  faith 
or  your  country  is  in  danger, — there  are  such 
moments  with  you  all  when  you  seize  the  idea 
of  human  living  and  are  made  generous  and 
brave  because  of  it.  Then,  for  all  your  modern 
dress,  for  all  your  modern  parlor  where  you 
stand,  you  are  heroic  like  David,  like  Paul, 
like  any  of  God's  knights  in  any  of  the  ages 
which  are  most  remote  and  picturesque.  Then 
you  catch  some  glimpse  of  a  region  into  which 
you  might  enter,  and  where,  with  no  blast  of 
trumpets  or  waving  of  banners,  you  might 
be  heroic  all  the  time. 

II.  173. 


FEBRUARY    14.  45 

Blessed  are  they  which  do  hunger  and  thirst 
after   righteousness,    for    they    shall    be   filed. 

Matt.  v.  6. 

THE  essence  of  every  beatitude  is  in  the 
human  heart,  and  yet  the  human  heart 
loves  to  hear  the  utterance  of  the  beatitudes 
from  the  mouth  of  God  as  if  they  were  His 
arbitrary  enactments.  I  know  by  that  of  the 
nature  of  God  which  is  in  me  as  His  child, 
that  they  which  hunger  and  thirst  after  right- 
eousness shall  certainly  be  filled.  I  am  sure, 
by  that  subtle  knowledge  of  Him  which  the 
child  must  have  of  the  Father,  that  He  could 
not  leave  a  really  longing  soul  unsatisfied  in 
all  His  world.  That  importunate  happiness, 
ready  to  give  itself  away,  must  pour  itself  into 
every  ready  life. 

VIII.  32. 

There's  not  a  craving  in  the  mind 
Thou  dost  not  meet  and  still; 

There's  not  a  wish  the  heart  can  have 
Which  Thou  dost  not  fulfil. 

All  things  that  have  been,  all  that  are, 
All  things  that  can  be  dreamed, 

All  possible  creations,  made, 
Kept  faithful,  or  redeemed, — 

All  these  may  draw  upon  Thy  power, 

Thy  mercy  may  command; 
And  still  outflows  Thy  silent  sea, 

Immutable  and  grand. 

Faber. 


46  FEBRUARY    15. 

Behold,  what  i/ianner  of  love  the  Father  hath 
bestowed  upon  us,  thai  we  should  be  called  the  sons 
of  God, — J  John  iii.  i. 

T^HERE  is  a  deeper  nature  which  belongs  to 
■'•  every  one  of  us  as  a  child  of  God.  .  .  . 
The  man  who  lives  in  that  deeper  nature,  the 
man  who  believes  himself  the  son  of  God, 
is  not  surprised  at  his  best  moments  and  his 
noblest  inspirations.  He  is  not  amazed  when 
he  does  a  brave  or  an  unselfish  thing.  He 
is  amazed  at  himself  when  he  is  a  coward 
or  a  liar.  He  accepts  self-restraint  only  as 
a  temporary  condition,  an  immediate  neces- 
sity of  life.  Not  self-restraint,  but  self-indul- 
gence, the  free,  unhindered  utterance  of  the 
deepest  nature,  which  is  good — that  is  the  only 
final  picture  of  man's  duty  which  he  tolerates. 
And  all  the  life  is  one;  the  specially  and  spe- 
cifically religious  part  being  but  the  point  at 
which  the  diamond  for  the  moment  shines, 
with  all  the  diamond  nature  waiting  in  reserve 
through  the  whole  substance  of  the  precious 

stone. 

V.  20. 

Take  all  in  a  word:   the  trust  in  God's  breast 
Lies  trace  for  trace  upon  ours  impressed; 
Though  He  be  so  bright  and  we  so  dim, 
We  are  made  in  His  image  to  witness  Him. 

Browning. 


FEBRUARY    i6.  47 

A  STRONG,  unalterable  persuasion  that 
God  is  merciful  and  kind  has  been  poured 
onto  your  life,  into  your  mind.  That  fact  it- 
self, once  known,  absorbs  your  contemplation. 
You  woultl  sit  lonely  in  the  empty  world  and  fill 
your  soul  with  gazing  on  the  brightness  of  that 
truth.  So  you  do  sit  to-day  when  there  comes 
some  sort  of  appeal  from  fellow-men.  .  .  . 
Somehow  the  cry  awakens  you,  and  you  go 
down  and  put  your  truth  into  your  brother's 
hands.  At  first  it  seems  almost  a  profanation. 
The  truth  is  so  sacred  and  seems  so  thoroughly 
your  own.  But  as  you  give  it  to  your  brother, 
new  lights  come  out  in  it.  For  God  to  be  good 
means  something  more  when  the  goodness 
turns  to  new  forms  of  blessing  in  the  new  need 
of  this  new  life.  O  you  who  think  you  know 
that  God  is  merciful  because  of  the  mercy 
which  He  has  shewed  to  you,  be  sure  there  is  a 
richness  in  your  truth  which  you  have  not 
reached  yet,  which  you  will  never  reach  until 
you  let  Him  make  your  life  the  interpreter  of 
His  goodness  to  some  other  soul! 

IV.  15. 

A  toil  that  gains  with  what  it  yields. 
And  scatters  to  its  own  increase, 

And  hears,  while  sowing  outward  fields, 
'J'he  harvest-song  of  inward  peace. 

Whittier. 


48  FEBRUARY    17. 

The  blessing  of  the  Lord^  it  maketh  rich. 

Prov.  X.  22. 

YOU  say,  How  can  I  believe  in  God  ?  Only 
by  coming  close  to  God,  and  learning  by 
deep  and  sweet  experience  that  He  has  better 
things  to  give  to  His  beloved  than  what  men 
call  prosperity, — the  peace  that  passeth  un- 
derstanding, the  calm  rest  of  forgiven  sin,  and 
of  a  soul  trusted  away  from  itself  into  its 
Saviour's  hands.  To  one  who  knows  what 
those  high  blessings  mean,  how  little  does  it 
seem  that  other  hands  should  fill  themselves 
with  the  shining  trifles  which  its  hands  are  too 
full  to  hold.  Think  how  it  will  seem  in  heaven! 
Standing  before  the  throne,  filled  with  the  un- 
speakable vision,  conscious  through  all  the 
glory  of  the  culture  that  suffering  has  brought, 
hurrying  with  joy  on  the  high  missions  of  the 
Lord,  who  will  look  back  then  and  be  troubled 
an  instant  at  the  recollection  of  how  a  wicked 
man  sat  at  a  little  richer  table,  or  had  a  little 
higher  seat  in  the  market-place  when  we  were 

here  on  earth  ? 

VI.  126. 

Lose  the  less  joy  that  doth  but  blind; 
Reach  forth  a  larger  bliss  to  find. 
To-day  is  brief;  the  inclusive  spheres 
Rain  raptures  of  a  thousand  years. 

Adeline  D.  T.  Whitney. 


FEBRUARY    i8.  49 

CONSECRATIONS  of  our  lives  to  others 
are  often  not  less  real  and  powerful 
because  they  are  unconscious.  .  .  .  We  have 
gone  on  with  our  work  in  life,  thinking  that 
the  purpose  of  our  work  was  centred  in  our- 
selves. .  .  .  But  some  day  a  friend  died — one 
who  was  very  near  to  us,  one  in  whom  our  life 
was  bound  up  in  many  ways.  Who  has  not 
known  the  dreadful  going  out  of  all  the  in- 
terest of  living  at  the  time  of  such  a  death  ? 
It  seemed  as  if  there  were  nothing  left  to  live 
for.  ...  It  was  terrible.  But  it  was  blessed 
if  you  did  not  stop  there,  but,  with  persistent 
love  that  would  not  be  satisfied  until  it  found 
the  object  it  had  lost,  you  traced  the  precious 
life  on  as  it  left  you,  till  you  followed  it  into 
the  very  bosom  of  the  God  who  took  it,  and 
poured  out  there  the  treasures  of  devotion 
which  had  no  longer  any  one  dear  enough  to 
tempt  them  on  the  earth. 

VI.  4S,  49. 


And,  dearer  than  the  living  ones  that  dwell 

Beyond  the  throbbing  sea, — 
And  dearer  than  the  Dead,  whose  voices  swell 

The  heavenly  melody, — 
One  visiteth  His  people  in  the  night, 
Who   giveth   songs,    and  makes  the  darkness 
bright. 

B.  iM. 


50  FEBRUARY    19. 

NOTHING  is  more  sad  than  the  way  in 
which  we  comfort  ourselves  and  one  an- 
other for  our  sorrows,  by  vague,  unreaHzed 
promises  that  sorrow  cannot  last  forever. 

We  conceive  of  life  as  a  great  swinging 
sphere  which  must  forever  run  a  vast  orbit, 
doomed  to  perpetual  change,  and  so  sure  by 
and  by  to  sweep  into  the  sunlight,  if  we  can 
only  keep  alive  and  wait.  It  is  a  forlorn  and 
miserable  comfort.  It  loses  all  the  certain- 
ty and  personal  graciousness  of  Christianity. 
There  is  no  piety  about  it.  .  .  .  David's  pil- 
grims going  through  the  vale  of  misery  "  use 
it  "  for  a  well.  .  .  .  It  was  not  simply  a  sorrow 
that  was  succeeded  by  joy,  not  merely  a  peace 
promised  and  looked  for  and  waited  for,  it 
was  a  peace  found.  When  they  grew  thirsty 
they  looked,  not  merely  farther  on  into  the 
heart  of  the  future,  but  deeper  down  into  the 
bosom  of  the  present. 

VI.  23,  24. 


Some  narrow  hearts  there  are 
That  suffer  blight  when  that  they  fed  upon 
As  something  to  complete  their  being  fails; 
And  they  retire  into  their  holds  and  pine, 
And,  long  restrained,   grow  stern.      But  some 

there  are 
That  in  a  sacred  want  and  hunger  rise. 
And  draw  the  misery  home  and  live  with  it. 
And  excellent  in  honor  wait,  and  will 
That  something  good  should  yet  be  found  in  it, 
Or  wherefore  were  they  born  ? 

Jean  Ingelow. 


FEBRUARY    20.  51 

HOW  to  secure  humility  is  one  of  the  hard 
problems  of  all  systems  of  duty.  ...  It 
is  the  oneness  of  the  soul's  life  with  God's 
life  that  at  once  makes  us  try  to  be  like  Him 
and  brings  forth  our  unlikeness  to  Him.  It  is 
the  source  at  once  of  aspiration  and  humility. 
'Jlie  more  aspiration,  the  more  humility.  Hu- 
mility comes  by  aspiration.  If,  in  all  Christian 
history,  it  has  been  the  souls  which  most  looked 
up  that  were  the  humblest  souls;  if  the  Chris- 
tian man  keeps  his  soul  full  of  the  sense  of 
littleness,  even  in  all  his  hardest  work  for 
Christ,  not  by  denying  his  own  stature,  but 
by  standing  up  at  his  whole  height,  and  then 
looking  up  in  love  and  awe  and  seeing  God 
tower  in  infinitude  above  him, — certainly  all 
this  stamps  the  morality  which  is  wrought  out 
with  the  idea  of  Jesus  with  this  singular  es- 
sence, that  it  has  solved  the  problem  of  faith- 
fulness and  pride,  and  made  possible  humility 
by  aspiration. 

VIII.  66. 


All  service  should  be  done  for  Thee 
In  meek  humility 

And  awe  most  sweet. 
That  Thou  shouldst  take, 
E'en  for  Thy  Son  Christ  Jesus'  sake. 

Service  from  servants  so  unmeet. 

Anna  E.  Hamilton. 


52  FEBRUARY    21. 

Whatsoever  a  mafi  soweth,  thai  shall  he  also 
reap. — Gal.  vi.  7. 

He  which  soweth  spa?'ifigly  shall  reap  also  spar- 
ingly ;  and  he  which  soweth  bountifully  shall  reap 
also  bou7itifully. — 2  Cor.  ix.  6. 

T^HE  world  seems  to  be  a  great  field  in  which 
■^  every  man  drops  his  seed,  and  which 
gives  back  to  every  man,  not  just  the  same 
thing  which  he  dropped  there,  any  more  than 
the  brown  earth  holds  up  to  you  in  the  autumn 
the  same  blackberry  which  you  hid  under  its 
bosom  in  the  spring,  but  something  which  has 
its  true  correspondence  and  proportion  to  the 
seed  to  which  it  is  the  legitimate  and  natural 
reply.  Every  gift  has  its  return,  every  act 
has  its  consequence,  every  call  has  its  answer 
in  this  great  live,  alert  world,  where  man  stands 
central,  and  all  things  have  their  eyes  on  Him 
and  their  ears  open  to  His  voice.  III.  265. 

Sow  truth  if  thou  the  truth  wouldst  reap; 

Who  sows  the  false  shall  reap  the  vain; 
Erect  and  sound  thy  conscience  keep; 

From  hollow  deeds  and  words  refrain. 

Sow  love,  and  taste  its  fruitage  pure; 

Sow  peace,  and  reap  its  harvest  bright; 
Sow  sunbeams  on  the  rock  and  moor, 

And  find  a  harvest-home  of  light. 

HORATIUS    BONAR. 


FEBRUARY    22.  53 


Great  Truths  are  portions  of  the  soul  of  man; 

(ireat  souls  are  portions  of  eternity; 
Each  drop  of    blood   that    e'er  through    true 
heart  ran 

With  lofty  message,  ran  for  thee  and  me. 

IT  is  the  great  patriots  that  interpret  the 
value  of  their  country  to  the  common  cit- 
izen. The  man  absorbed  in  his  own  small 
affairs,  or  so  restricted  in  his  power  of  thought 
that  he  would  never  have  taken  in  the  national 
idea  for  himself  abstractly,  sees  how  Wash- 
ington and  Webster  and  Lincoln  loved  the 
land;  and  through  their  love  for  it,  its  worthi- 
ness of  his  own  love  becomes  made  known  to 
him.  Still  his  love  for  his  country,  when  it  is 
awakened,  is  his  own,  and  may  impel  him  to 
serve  her  in  most  peculiar  personal  ways,  very 
different  from  theirs,  but  none  the  less  it  is 
true  that  but  for  the  interpretation  of  these 
great  men's  honor  for  her,  he  would  have  hon- 
ored his  country  less  or  not  at  all.  They  in- 
terpret to  their  fellow-men  what  God  has  first 
interpreted  to  them,  till  ultimately  the  fire 
which  starts  from  the  central  heart  of  all 
runs  through  the  world,  and  the  blindest  are 
enlightened  to  discern,  and  the  most  timid  be- 
come bold  enough  to  praise,  the  movement 
which  at  first  had  no  friend  but  God. 

V.  328,  338. 

And  shall   we  praise?       God's  praise  was  his 

before; 
And  on  our  futile  laurels  he  looks  down. 
Himself  our  bravest  crown! 

James  Russell  Lowell, 


54  FEBRUARY    23. 

Great  peace  have  they  which  love  Thy  law. 

Ps.  cxix.  165. 

A  RE  you  at  peace  with  yourself  ?  If  your 
^*-  will  is  taking  your  powers,  which  were 
made  to  do  noble  and  gentle  and  generous 
things,  and  forcing  them  to  do  sordid  and 
brutal  and  mean  things;  if  you  are  living  a 
life  of  miserable  drudgery,  treating  yourself 
like  a  machine;  or  if  you  are  living  a  life  of 
dissipation,  treating  yourself  like  a  brute,  then 
you  are  not  at  peace  with  yourself  surely. 
Yourself  is  misusing,  is  abusing  yourself.  .  .  . 
A  man  is  both  harp  and  harper.  The  harp 
may  not  complain,  but  all  the  time  the  music 
it  was  meant  to  make  sleeps  in  its  strings;  and 
it  cannot  be  at  peace  with  the  cruel  fingers 
that  make  it  unmusical.  And  in  your  powers 
sleeps  the  nobleness  that  they  were  made  to 
do,  in  everlasting  protest  against  the  wicked- 
ness to  which  you  compel  them.  O  my  dear 
friends,  to  be  at  peace  with  ourselves  is  not  to 
loosely  approve  ourselves  in  what  we  are.  It 
is  to  work  with  ourselves,  that  we  may  be  all 

that  God  made  us  for. 

VI.  194. 

"  Couldst  thou  in  vision  see 

Thyself  the  man  God  meant. 
Thou  never  more  wouldst  be 
The  man  thou  art — content." 


FEBRUARY    24.  55 

Of  these  men  which  have  companied  with  us^  .  .  . 
mi^st  one  be  ordained  to  be  a  witness  laith  iis  of 
His  resurrection.  .  .  .  And  the  lot  fell  upon 
Matthias. — Acts  i.  22,  26. 

TJOWEVER  the  Gospel  may  be  capable  of 
^  ■*•  statement  in  dogmatic  form,  its  truest 
statement  we  know  is  not  in  dogma  but  in  per- 
sonal life.  ...  So  I  think  a  man's  best  ser- 
mon is  the  best  utterance  of  his  life.  ...  If 
it  is  really  God's  message  through  him,  it 
brings  him  out  in  a  way  that  no  other  expe- 
rience of  his  life  has  power  to  do,  as  the 
quality  of  the  trumpet  declares  itself  more 
clearly  when  the  strong  man  blows  a  blast 
for  battle  through  it  than  when  a  child  whis- 
pers into  it  in  play.  Remember  this:  .  .  . 
then,  when  you  hear  your  brother  preach, 
honor  the  work  that  he  is  doing  and  listen  as 
reverently  as  you  can  to  hear  through  him 
some  voice  of  God.  ...  He  is  the  mes- 
senger of  Christ  to  the  soul  of  man  always. 

XI.  27,  135,  140. 

O  Almighty  God,  who  didst  choose  Thy  faithful  servant 
Matthias  to  take  part  in  the  ministry  and  apostleship  from 
which  Judas  by  transgression  fell ;  Grant  that  Thy  Church, 
preserved  from  false  Apostles,  may  ever  be  blessed  with 
faithful  Ministers  of  Thy  word  and  sacraments  ;  through 
Jesus  Chrisc  our  Lord.     Amen. 

Mexican  Provisional  Offices. 


56  FEBRUARY    25. 


As  Thou,  Father,  art  in  Me,  and  I  in   Thee, 
that  they  also  may  be  one  in  us. — John  xvii.  21. 

WHO  can  read  words  like  these  and  not 
catch  sight  of  what  it  was  that  was  to 
fill  these  disciples'  lives  with  energy,  and  to 
be  the  atmosphere  wherein  their  new  goodness 
should  get  all  its  growth?  God's  fatherhood 
made  visible  to  them  in  Christ,  His  Son;  their 
sonship  to  God  made  visible  in  Christ,  their 
brother.  It  was  as  if  at  the  beginning  of  all 
ages  down  which  their  Christian  life  has  run, 
they  lay,  like  Jacob  on  the  night  when  he  went 
out  to  his  new  life  from  his  father's  home,  and 
to  them,  as  to  him,  a  ladder  seems  to  stretch 
up  into  heaven,  and  the  angels  of  God  ascend- 
ed and  descended  on  it, — the  angels  of  duty 
bringing  God's  strength  to  men,  and  carrying 
men's  obedience  to  God,  on  the  ladder  of  the 
fatherhood  and  sonship  that  bound  the  heav- 
ens to  the  earth,  set  up  in  the  new  Beth-el, 
the  new  House  of  God,  which  was  the  life  of 
Jesus. 

VIII.  60. 

By  eyes  that  are  pure  and  hearts  that  are  clean, 
At  morn  and  at  eve  is  a  Ladder  still  seen: 
And  the  angels  still  come,  and  the  angels  still 

go 

To  the  hands  lifted  up,  from  the  heads  bended 

low, 
With   the  blessings   He  gives  and   the  thanks 

that  we  say. 
With  the  grace  that  we  need  and  the  worship 

we  pay. 

J.  L.  M.  W. 


FEBRUARY    26.  57 

/^  YOUNG  disciples,  whatever  other  kind 
^^  of  falseness  to  your  faith  you  may  fall 
into,  may  you  be  saved  at  least  from  ever 
being  ashamed  of  it.  It  is  the  noblest,  the 
divinest,  thing  on  earth.  You  may  have  only 
got  hold  of  the  very  borders  of  it,  but  if  in  any 
true  sense  you  can  say,  "  Jesus  is  the  Lord," 
you  have  set  foot  into  the  region  wherein  man 
lives  his  completest  life.  Go  on,  without  one 
thought  or  dream  of  turning  back,  and  with 
no  shamefaced  hiding  of  the  new  mastery  under 
which  you  are  trying  to  live.  If  your  Chris- 
tian service  is  too  small  in  its  degree  for  you 
to  boast  of,  it  is  too  precious  in  its  kind  for 
you  to  be  ashamed  of.  Go  on  forever  craving 
and  forever  winning  more  faith  and  obedience, 
and  so  learning  more  and  more  forever  that 
faith  and  obedience  are  the  glory  and  crown 
of  human  life. 

VI.  100. 


Life  may  be  given  in  many  ways, 
And  loyalty  to  Truth  be  sealed 

As  bravely  in  the  closet  as  the  field. 
So  bountiful  is  fate; 
But  then  to  stand  beside  her, 
When  craven  churls  deride  her, 

To  front  a  lie  in  arms  and  not  to  yield. 
This  shows,  methinks,  God's  plan 
/. nd  measure  of  a  stalwart  man. 

James  Russell  Lowell. 


58  FEBRUARY    27. 

HOW  in  a  time  like  this  can  a  man  live  and 
get  the  best  out  of  it,  and  at  the  same 
time  shun  its  worst?  Here  in  this  time  of  un- 
certainties, here  in  this  wandering  transition 
age,  we  are  to  live,  whether  we  will  or  no.  .  .  . 
And  what  can  one  do  with  his  own  personal 
life  to  keep  it  from  complete  confusion,  and,  if 
it  be  possible,  to  make  it  grow  strong  and 
rich  and  true,  out  of  these  very  circumstances 
which,  perhaps,  we  hopelessly  deplore  ?  „  .  . 
Above  all  things,  there  is  the  strength  and  per- 
manence of  religion.  Never  was  there  such  a 
time  for  a  man  to  cling  to  that.  "  Ah,  but," 
you  say,  "that  is  the  most  uncertain  of  all 
things  !  What  is  more  unsettled  than  relig- 
ion ?  "  But  no,  my  friends.  .  .  .  The  knowl- 
edge that  love  is  at  the  root  of  everything;  the 
answer  of  the  human  soul  to  the  appealing 
nature  and  life  of  Jesus  Christ;  the  value  of 
the  soul  above  the  body,  of  the  character 
above  the  circumstances;  and  the  eternal 
life, — these  are  what  men  may  cling  to.  If 
any  man  does  cling  to  these,  he  is  really  upon 
a  rock,  and  whatever  else  which  he  thought 
was  rock  may  prove  to  be  ice  and  melt  away, 
here  he  is  safe.  Here  is  the  great,  last  cer- 
tainty. Be  sure  of  God.  With  simple,  loving 
worship,  by  continual  obedience,  by  purifying 
yourself  even  as  He  is  pure,  creep  close,  keep 
close  to  Him.  I.  172,  173. 

With  Thee  our  souls  in  peace  abide; 
In  Thee  heaven's  childhood  we  begin; 
Thy  kingdom  we  shall  enter  in, 
Not  pure,  but  purified. 

Lucy  Larcom, 


FEBRUARY    28.  59 


Then  Jesus  took  unto  Hi7n  the  twelve^  and  said 
unto  them.  Behold^  we  go  tip  to  Jerusalem,  and  all 
things  that  are  laritten  concerjiing  the  Son  of  man 
shall  be  accomplished. — Luke  xviii.  30. 

AND  so  every  true  life  lias  its  Jerusalem  to 
which  it  is  always  going  up.  At  first 
far  off  and  dimly  seen,  laying  but  light  hold 
upon  our  purpose  and  our  will,  then  gradually 
taking  us  more  and  more  into  its  power,  com- 
pelling our  study,  directing  the  current  of  our 
thoughts,  arranging  our  friendships  for  us,  de- 
ciding for  us  what  powers  we  shall  bring  out 
into  use,  deciding  for  us  what  we  shall  be.  .  .  . 
You  stop  the  student  at  his  books,  the  philan- 
thropist at  his  committee,  the  saint  at  his 
prayers.  You  say  to  each  of  them,  "  Wiiat 
does  it  all  mean  ?  What  are  you  doing  ?  What 
is  it  all  for  ?  "  And  the  answer  is  everywhere 
the  same  :  "  Behold,  we  go  up  to  Jerusalem." 
We  draw  back  the  vail  of  history,  and  every- 
where it  is  the  same  picture  that  we  see. 
Companies,  great  and  small,  climbing  moun- 
tains to  where  sacred  cities  stand  awaiting 
them  with  open  gates  upon  the  top.  The  man 
who  is  going  up  to  no  Jerusalem  is  but  the 
ghost  and  relic  of  a  "man.  He  has  in  him  no 
genuine  and  healthy  human  life. 

IV.  317. 


Yea,  very  vain 
The  greatest  speed  of  all  these  souls  of  men, 
Unless  ti.ey  travel  upward  to  Thy  throne  ! 

Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning. 


6o  MARCH 


Whose  high  endeavors  are  an  inward  light 
That    makes    the    path    before    him    always 

bright;   ... 
Who,  doomed  to  go  in  company  with  pain, 
Turns  his  necessity  to  glorious  gain. 

Wordsworth. 

IF  the  life  which  you  have  chosen  to  be  your 
life  is  really  worthy  of  you,  it  involves 
self-sacrifice  and  pain.  If  your  Jerusalem 
really  is  your  sacred  city,  there  is  certainly 
a  cross  in  it.  What  then  ?  Shall  you  flinch 
and  draw  back  ?  Shall  you  ask  for  yourself 
another  life?  O  no,  not  another  life,  but 
another  self.  Ask  to  be  born  again.  Ask 
God  to  fill  you  with  Himself,  and  then  calmly 
look  up  and  go  on.  Go  up  to  Jerusalem  ex- 
pecting all  things  that  are  written  concerning 
you  to  be  fulfilled.  Disappointment,  mortifi- 
cation, misconception,  enmity,  pain,  death, 
these  may  come  to  you,  but  if  they  come  ^  to 
you  in  doing  your  duty  it  is  all  right.  "It 
cannot  be  that  a  prophet  perish  out  of  Jeru- 
salem," said  Jesus.  "  It  is  dreadful  to  sufi^er 
except  in  doing  duty.  To  suffer  there  is  glori- 
ous." That  is  our  translation  of  his  words 
into  our  own  life. 

IV.  331. 


One  endless  living  story! 

One  poem  spread  abroad! 
And  the  sum  of  all  our  glory 

Is  the  countenance  of  God. 

George  Macdonald. 


MARCH    2.  6t 


The  time  is  short.  —  i  Cor.  vii.  29. 

THE  shortness  of  life  is  closely  associated, 
not  merely  with  the  great  hopes  of  the 
future,  but  with  the  real  vitality  of  the  pres- 
ent. What  then  ?  If  you  and  I  complain  how 
short  life  is,  how  quickly  it  flies  through  the 
grasp  with  which  we  try  to  hold  it,  we  are 
complaining  of  that  which  is  the  necessary 
consequence  of  our  vitality.  You  can  make 
life  long  only  by  making  it  slow;  and  if  you 
want  to  make  it  slow,  I  should  think  there 
were  men  enough  in  town  who  could  tell 
you  how, — men  with  idle  hands  and  brains, 
who  seem  to  have  so  much  trouble  to  get 
through  life  as  it  is  that  we  cannot  imagine 
that  they  really  wish  that  there  were  more  of 
it.  .  .  .  The  shortness  of  life  is  bound  up 
with  its  fulness.  It  is  to  him  who  is  most  ac- 
tive, always  thinking,  feeling,  working,  caring 
for  people  and  for  things,  that  life  seems 
short.  Strip  a  life  empty  and  it  will  seem 
long  enough. 

I.  31S,  319. 


He  liveth  long  who  liveth  well, — 
All  other  life  is  short  and  vain; 

He  liveth  longest  who  can  tell 
Of  living  most  for  heavenly  gain. 

Waste  not  thy  being;  back  to  Him 
Who  freely  gave  it,  freely  give; 

Else  is  that  being  but  a  dream — 
"xis  but  to  be,  and  not  to  live. 

HORATIUS    BONAR. 


62  MARCH    3. 


THE  more  we  watch  the  Hves  of  men,  the 
more  we  see  that  one  of  the  reasons  why 
men  are  not  occupied  with  great  thoughts  and 
interests  is  the  way  in  which  their  lives  are 
overfilled  with  little  things.  It  is  not  that 
you  deliberately  dislike  thought  and  study 
and  benevolence.  It  is  mainly  that  you  are 
so  busy  with  amusement  and  society  and  idle- 
ness that  you  are  living  such  an  unprofitable 
life.  It  is  not  that  you  despise  the  highest 
hopes  and  interests  of  your  immortal  nature 
that  you  neglect  them  so.  It  is  that  your 
passions  crowd  so  thick  about  you  that  you 
are  entirely  occupied  with  them.  .  .  .  You 
have  got  to  say  to  these  crowding  passions  of 
yours:  "  Stand  aside.  Leave  my  soul  open, 
that  it  and  God,  it  and  duty,  may  come  to- 
gether; " — making  an  emptiness  about  the  soul 
that  the  higher  fulness  may  fill  it.  It  may  be 
temporary.  Once  more  the  lower  needs  may 
fasten  on  us,  the  lower  pleasures  try  to  satisfy 
us;  but  they  never  can  be  quite  so  arbitrary 
and  arrogant  as  they  were,  after  they  have 
once  had  to  yield  to  their  superiors.  .  .  . 
Perhaps  some  day  they  may  themselves  be- 
come, and  dignify  themselves  by  becoming, 
the  meek  interpreters  and  ministers  of  those 
very  powers  which  they  once  shut  out  from 
the  soul.  II.  206,  209,  212. 

For  when  thou  seekest  not  altogether  visible   things  to 

enjoy  them, 
But  beholdest  them  to  bless  the  name  of  thy  Creator — 
Fashioning  to  thyself  out  of  the  highest  and  lowest  of  His 

works  a  sort  of  ladder, 
On  which  thou  mayest  lean  to  get  upwards — 
Thou  shalt  be  delivered  from   the  baneful  snares  of  this 

world.  Thomas  A  Kempis. 


MARCH   4.  6^ 


THE  purpose  of  God's  government,  the  one 
design  on  which  it  all  proceeds,  is  that 
the  whole  world,  through  obedience  to  Him, 
should  be  wrought  into  His  likeness,  and  made 
the  utterance  of  His  character.  .  .  .  With 
wills  harmonized  with  His  will;  with  souls  that 
love  and  hate  in  truest  unison  of  sympathy  with 
His;  with  no  purposes  left  in  us  but  His  pur- 
poses,— then  we  have  come  to  what  He  wants 
the  world  to  come  to.  We  have  taken  our 
places  in  the  slowly  rising  temple  of  His  will. 
To  whatever  worlds  He  carries  our  souls  when 
they  shall  pass  out  of  these  imprisoning 
bodies,  in  those  worlds  these  souls  of  ours 
shall  find  themselves  part  of  the  same  great 
temple;  for  it  belongs  not  to  this  earth  alone. 
There  can  be  no  end  of  the  universe  where 
God  is  to  which  that  growing  temple  does 
not  reach,  the  temple  of  a  creation  to  be 
wrought  at  last  into  a  perfect  utterance  of 
God  by  a  perfect  obedience  to  God.     11.  6g.  71. 

Thy  wonderful  grand  will,  my  God; 

Triumphantly  I  make  it  mine; 
And  faith  shall  breathe  her  glad  "  Amen  " 

To  every  dear  command  of  Thine. 

Beneath  the  splendor  of  Thy  choice. 
Thy  perfect  choice  for  me,  I  rest; 

Outside  it  now  I  dare  not  live, 
Within  it  I  must  needs  be  blest. 

Then  may  Thy  perfect,  glorious  Will 

Be  evermore  fulfilled  in  me. 
And  make  my  life  an  answering  chord 

Of  glad,  responsive  harmony. 

Jean  Sophia  Pigott. 


64  MARCH    5. 


HE  who  has  lived  in  the  form  of  an  experi- 
ence looks  back,  while  he  who  has  en- 
tered into  the  substance  and  soul  of  an  expe- 
rience looks  forward.  "  The  outward  man 
perishes,"  as  Paul  says,  "  but  the  inward  man 
is  renewed  day  by  day."  The  perishing  of  a 
form  and  method  in  which  we  have  lived  may 
naturally  bring  a  pensive  sadness  like  that 
which  always  comes  to  us  as  we  watch  a  set- 
ting of  the  sun,  but  he  who  is  in  the  true  spirit 
of  the  sunset  turns  instantly  from  the  west- 
ward to  the  eastern  look.  The  things  the 
day  has  given  him, — its  knowledge,  and  its 
inspirations,  and  its  friendship,  and  its  faith, 
— these  the  departing  sun  is  powerless  to  carry 
with  it.  They  claim  the  new  day  in  which  to 
show  their  power  and  to  do  their  work.  Live 
deeply  and  you  must  live  hopefully.  That  is 
the  law  of  life. 


VI.  329. 


Though  this  very  day 
Casts  but   a  dull  stone  on   Time's  heaped-up 

cairn, 
A    morning   light   will    break   once  more   and 

draw 
The  hidden  glories  of  a  thousand  hues 
Out  from  its  crystal  depths  and  ruby-spots 
And  sapphire-veins,  unseen,  unknown  before. 

Time 
Is  God's,  and  all  his  miracles  are  His; 
And  in  the  Future  he  overtakes  the  Past, 
Which  was  a  prophecy  of  times  to  come. 

George  Macdonald. 


MARCH    6.  65 


Men  see  not  the  bright  light  which  is  in  the 
clouds. — Job  xxxvii.  21. 

THE  sense  of  human  pain  grows  stronger  all 
the  time.  And  it  sometimes  seems  as 
if  the  sense  of  purpose  and  education  grew 
weaker  in  a  multitude  of  souls.  It  is  the 
heart  of  man  taken,  Balaam-like,  to  a  place 
whence  it  can  see  the  part  and  not  the  whole; 
and  who  that  listens  does  not  hear  the  mut- 
tering of  the  curse  ?  Where  is  the  help,  first 
for  your  soul,  then  for  the  whole  great  world  ? 
Not  in  saying  that  pain  is  not  pain,  not  in 
shutting  the  eyes  to  the  part  which  is  so  aw- 
fully manifest,  but  in  seeing,  in  insisting  upon 
seeing,  the  whole. 

"  To  feel,  although  no  tongue  can  prove, 
That  every  cloud  that  spreads  above, 
And  veileth  love,  itself  is  love." 

That  is  the  only  help.  He  who  lets  his 
heart  bear  witness,  he  who  lets  the  experience 
of  countless  sufferers  bear  witness,  he  who 
lets  Christ  bear  witness,  that  no  suffering  ever 
yet  came  to  any  human  creature  by  which  it 
was  not  possible  that  that  human  creature 
should  be  made  better  and  purer  and  great- 
er,— he  has  caught  sight  of  the  whole;  and 
though  he  walks  in  silence  and  perplexity  and 
suspense,  he  does  not  curse. 

\  I   222. 

Knowing  that  here  we  live  but  in  a  tent, 
And  ihat  our  house  is  yonder,  without  fail. 
Georgk  Macdonald. 


66  MARCH    7, 


Then  was  Jesus  led  up  of  the  Spirit  into  the 
wilderness  to  be  teffipted  of  the  devil. 

Matt.  iv.  i. 

THE  temptation  of  Jesus  is  certainly  a  very 
wonderful  event.  There  is  no  incident 
in  all  His  history  on  which  the  imagination 
may  expend  itself  with  a  more  lavish  spec- 
ulation; and,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is 
none  that  comes  nearer  to  practical  life  with 
stimulus  and  comfort.  .  .  .  The  man  who  has 
seen  Christ  tempted  will  not  deny  temptation 
thenceforth.  He  will  not  be  found  explaining 
it  away.  He  will  not  delude  himself  with 
vain  hopes  of  escaping  it  and  living  a  smooth, 
untempted  life.  He  will  read  in  the  tempta- 
tion of  the  perfect  Life  that  that  is  impossible 
forever  for  any  man.  When  he  is  depressed 
and  hungry  and  exhausted,  he  will  look  for  the 
devil  as  his  Lord  did,  and  when  he  sees  him 
coming,  when  he  hears  his  words  and  feels 
the  desire  of  sin  stirring  in  his  heart,  he  will  not 
say,  "  Oh,  this  is  nothing  but  one  stage  of  my 
growth."  He  will  recognize  the  old  enemy 
of  his  Master  coming  for  the  old  battle,  and 
gather  up  his  strength  and  pray  for  his  Mas- 
ter's strength  in  the  hour  of  terrible,  inevita- 
ble struggle.  VII.  130,  133. 

Distrust  thyself,  but  trust  His  grace, 

It  is  enough  for  thee  : 
In  every  trial  thou  shalt  trace 

Its  all-sufficiency. 

Distrust  thyself,  but  trust  His  strength  : 

In  Him  thou  shalt  be  strong  : 
His  weakest  ones  may  learn  at  length 

A  daily  triumph-song. 

FRANciis  R.  Havergal. 


MARCH    8.  67 


SURELY  it  always  must  be  full  of  meaning, 
that  Christ  Himself,  before  He  began  His 
struggles  with  the  Pharisees  and  Scribes,  went 
out  into  the  desert  and  struggled  with  Him- 
self. .  .  .  Many  a  time  the  wilfulness,  and 
narrowness,  and  selfishness  which  He  saw  in 
the  faces  which  surrounded  Him  in  some 
crowd  in  the  temple  must  have  been  clearer  to 
Him  and  easier  to  understand,  because  they 
were  just  the  passions  which  had  tried  to  take 
possession  of  His  own  heart,  and  failed,  dur- 
ing those  long  terrible  days  in  the  dark  wilder- 
ness. And  oh!  my  friends,  there  is  no  way  in 
which  whatever  personal  struggles  with  faith- 
lessness and  sin  we  may  have  gone  through 
can  be  made  to  keep  their  freshness  and  power, 
and  at  the  same  time  be  kept  from  becoming 
a  source  of  morbid  wretchedness,  no  way  that 
is  half  so  efficient  as  that  they  should  con- 
stantly be  called  on  to  light  up  for  us  the 
same  sort  of  struggles  in  other  men,  and  give 
us  the  power  to  help  them  with  intelligence 
and  sympathy.  Demand  that  lofty  service 
of  every  deep  experience  through  which  you 
pass.  Demand  that  it  shall  help  you  under- 
stand and  aid  the  battles  of  your  brethren. 

VI.  84,  85. 

So  thou  wilt  be  sterner  foe, 
So  thou  wilt  be  dearer  friend; 

So  the  saints  thy  name  shall  know, 
And  Christ  own  thee  at  the  end. 

CaNTICA    Sl'UUTUALlS. 


68  MARCH    9. 


Covitnand  that  these  stones  be  made  bread. 

Matt.  iv.  3. 

IF  we  had  stood  there  and  heard  the  Satanic 
demand  made  we  should  have  waited,  stop- 
ping our  breath  to  hear  some  supreme  asser- 
tion of  the  Godhead  that  repelled  so  low  an 
insult.  "Go  to  men,"  we  should  have  lis- 
tened for  the  Lord  to  say — "  go  to  men  with 
arguments  like  those.  Their  natures  are  built 
to  answer  such  appeals.  All  that  a  man  hath 
will  he  give  for  that  life  which  bread  must 
feed."   .    .   . 

I  love  Christ  all  the  more  when  I  see  how 
different  His  answer  was  from  that.  I  love 
Him  when  I  see  Him  declare  Himself  a  man, 
and  from  the  human  standpoint  fling  aside 
the  tempter's  plea.  I  reverence  and  cling  to 
the  true  human  nature  that  there  was  in  Him 
when  I  hear  Him  go  back  and  take  up  the 
words  that  had  been  on  human  lips,  that  de- 
clared the  resources  of  human  nature,  that 
asserted  the  higher  life  in  Man:  "  It  is  writ- 
ten, Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by 
every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth 
of  God."  The  danger  is  to  us  who  hold  so 
much  to  the  divinity  of  Christ  that  His  human- 
ity will  mean  too  little.  Let  us  remember 
that  in  times  such  as  this  of  the  temptation 
there  is  a  strength  for  us  in  the  thought  that 
it  was  a  Man  who  fought  and  conquered, 
which  no  simple  assurance  of  His  being  God 
could  give.  VII.  151,  152. 

For  ifi  that  He  himself  hath  suffered^  being 
tempted,  He  is  able  to  succor  them  that  are  tempted. 

Heb.  ii.  18. 


MARCH    lo.  69 


YOU  cannot  be  man  and  live  a  man's  life 
without  coming  into  this  world  where 
sin  is  and  where  you  must  be  tried.  That 
great  temptation  that  comes  swaggering  up 
and  frightening  you  so  has  got  the  best  part 
of  your  character  held  under  his  brawny  arm. 
You  cannot  get  it  without  wrestling  with  him 
and  forcing  it  away  from  him.  That  moun- 
tain that  towers  up  and  defies  you  has  got 
your  spiritual  health  away  up  on  its  snowy 
summit.  That  is  what  shines  there  in  the  sun. 
You  cannot  reach  it  except  by  the  terrible 
climb.  Ask  yourself  what  you  would  have 
been  if  you  had  never  been  tempted,  and  own 
what  a  blessed  thing  the  educating  power  of 
temptation  is.  And  then  ...  as  Christ's 
temptation  was  vicarious,  and  when  He  con- 
quered He  conquered  for  others  besides  Him- 
self, so  it  was  with  us.  There  are  men  and 
women  all  around  us  who  have  got  to  meet 
the  same  temptations  that  we  are  meeting. 
Will  it  help  them  or  not  to  know  that  we  have 
met  them  and  conquered  them  ?  Will  it  help 
us  or  not  to  know  that  if  we  conquer  the 
temptation  we  conquer  not  for  ourselves  only, 
but  for  them  ?  The  vicariousness  of  all  life! 
There  is  not  one  of  us  who  has  not  some  one 
more  or  less  remotely  fastened  to  his  acts, 
concerning  whom  he  may  say,  as  Christ  said, 
"  For  their  sakes  I  sanctify  myself." 

VII.  140,  141. 

Nor  knowest  thou  what  argument 
Thy  life  to  thy  neighbor's  creed  has  lent. 

Emerson. 


yo  MARCH 


Count  it  all  joy  that  ye  fall  into  divers  tempta- 
tions.— James  i.  2. 

HOW  strange  it  seems  to  us  that  there 
should  be  such  a  thing  as  temptation  in 
the  world  at  all!  God  sends  us  into  the  world 
and  hangs  in  the  great  distance  before  us  cer- 
tain lofty  prizes — goodness,  truth,  purity — 
which  He  has  made  our  hearts  capable  of  de- 
siring. .  .  .  But  we  have  not  really  started 
towards  them  before  the  presence  of  another 
power  begins  to  show  itself.  Hands  pluck  at 
us  to  draw  us  out  of  the  straight  way.  Voices 
call  to  us  with  enticements  or  with  threats  to 
make  us  turn  aside.  .  .  .  No  adoption  of 
any  strict  rule  of  life,  no  separation  of  our- 
selves from  a  certain  region  of  dangerous 
occupations,  sets  us  free  from  the  persecution 
of  temptation.  We  are  tempted  to  sin  every- 
where. It  is  pathetic,  almost  terrible,  to  think 
how  long  this  has  been  going  on.  Through 
all  those  weary  years  which  it  tires  us  to  think 
of,  they  have  been  so  many;  through  all  those 
monotonous  generations  that  we  hear  flowing 
on  endlessly  through  the  cavernous  depths  of 
history,  as  one  listens  to  a  stream  dropping 
down  monotonously  forever  underground; 
through  all  the  years  and  generations  of 
human  life  men  have  been  tempted — not  one 
that  ever  lived  that  did  not  meet  this  persist- 
ent, intrusive  enticement  to  sin.  vii.  130. 

Now,  the  training-,  strange  and  lowly, 

Unexplained  and  trying  now  : 
Afterward,  the  service  holy. 

And  the  Master's  "  Enter  thou  !  " 

Frances  R.  Havergal. 


MARCH    12.  71 


Will  He  plead  a^i:^ai/ist  me  with  His  <^ real poiacr? 
No  J  but  He  7i<oulil put  strejis^th  into  me. 

Job  xxiii.  6. 

FOR  years  you  have  lived,  it  may  be,  a  se- 
cluded and  protected  life.  "  Lead  me 
not  into  temptation,"  so  you  have  prayed 
every  morning,  and  every  day  has  brought 
the  answer  to  your  prayer.  But  some  day  all 
that  breaks  and  goes  to  pieces.  A  great 
temptation  comes  and  is  not  hindered.  Then 
you  cry  out  for  the  old  mercy  and  it  is  not 
given.  .  .  .  And  then,  behold  what  comes!  A 
new  mercy !  You  go  into  the  temptation.  Your 
old  security  perishes,  but  by  and  by  out  of  its 
death  comes  a  new  strength.  Not  to  be  saved 
from  dying  but  to  die  and  then  to  live  again 
in  a  new  security,  a  strong  and  trusty  charac- 
ter, educated  by  trial,  purified  by  fire, — that 
is  what  comes  as  the  issue  of  the  whole.  Not 
a  victory  for  you,  preserving'you  from  danger, 
but  a  victory  in  you,  strengthening  you  by 
danger, — that  is  the  experience  from  which 
you  go  forth,  strong  with  a  strength  which 
nothing  can  subdue. 

V.  35. 


Oh,  may  we  follow  undismayed 
Where'er  our  God  shall  call! 

And  may  His  spirit's  present  aid 
Uphold  us  lest  we  fall! 

Till  in  the  end  of  days  we  stand 

As  victors  in  a  deathless  land. 

John  Henry  Newman. 


72  MARCH    13. 


The  mind  shall  banquet,  though  the  body  pine. 

Shakespeare. 

HEALTH,  companionship,  life  itself,  these 
are  no  longer  indispensable  when  Christ 
has  shown  us  God.  A  resignation  that  is  not 
despair,  but  aspiration;  a  looser  grasp  on 
time,  that  means  how  strongly  we  are  holding 
to  eternity;  this  must  come  to  us  when,  after 
all  our  doing  of  little  temporary  things,  we 
have  at  last  begun  in  Christ  the  life  and  work 
that  is  to  go  on  forever  and  forever.  Then 
even  the  most  essential  things  of  this  world 
we  can  do  without,  if  need  be.  We  have 
passed  from  the  lower  to  the  higher  necessi- 
ties. We  walk  by  faith,  and  not  by  sight. 
Already,  even  while  we  are  yet  in  the  flesh, 
before  we  cross  the  river,  the  promise  finds 
its  fulfilment.  We  live  in  the  world,  but  we 
do  not  live  by  the  world.  Already  the  sun  is 
no  more  our  light  by  day;  neither  for  bright- 
ness does  the  moon  give  light  unto  us;  but  the 
Lord  is  unto  us  an  everlasting  light,  and  our 
God  our  glory.  I.  298. 

Light  of  the  world!   for  ever,  ever  shining; 

There  is  no  change  in  Thee; 
True  Light  of  life,  all  joy  and  health  enshrin- 
ing, 

Thou  canst  not  fade  nor  flee. 

Thou  hast  arisen,  but  Thou  descendest  never; 

To-day  shines  as  the  past; 
All  that  Thou  wast  Thou  art,   and  shalt  be 
ever, — 

Brightness  from  first  to  last! 

HORATIUS  IjONAR, 


MARCH    14.  73 


Theii  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  hcr^  O  7vo- 
man,  great  is  thy  faith  :  be  it  unto  thee  even  as  thou 
wilt. — Matt.  xv.  25. 

FAITH  is  the  necessary  power  that  the 
weaker  has  over  the  stronger,  the  lower 
over  the  higher.  .  .  .  This  power  comes  to 
{perfection  in  Jesus.  Could  there  be  a  more 
complete  picture  of  it  than  shines  out  in  His 
own  story  of  the  shepherd  and  the  sheep  ? 
The  shepherd  has  folded  his  ninety-and-nine; 
everything  is  safe  and  strong  and  prosperous; 
he  stands  with  his  hand  upon  the  sheepfold 
gate;  and  then,  just  as  he  seems  all  wrapped 
up  in  the  satisfaction  and  completeness  of  the 
sight,  there  comes,  so  light  that  no  ear  except 
his  cau  hear  it,  the  cry  of  one  poor  lost  sheep 
off  in  the  mountains,  and  it  summons  him  with 
an  irresistible  challenge,  and  his  staff  is  in  his 
hand  instantly,  and  he  turns  his  back  on 
everything  else  to  be  the  slave  of  that  one 
lost  sheep  till  it  is  found.  What  a  wonderful 
and  everlasting  and  universal  story  that  par- 
able is!  III.  174,  175. 

He  bendeth  low  from  His  holy  hill 
Searching  the  shadows  gray  and  chill, — 
And  clear  through  the  angel-singing — 

What  time  the  sons  of  God 
Shout  loud,  for  joy  upspringing, 

Till  all  the  heavens  are  bowed — 
He  hears  the  faintest  sighing 

Of  some  poor,  far-cff  soul, 
Who  turns  to  look  to  the  holy  place 

While  the  billows  round  him  roll. 

I  J.  M. 


74  MARCH    15 


/  seek  not  mine  own  7vill,  but  the  will  of  Che 
Father  who  Jiath  sent  vie. — John  v.  30. 

TT  was  in  His  sonship  to  God  that  the  secret 
-■•  of  the  holiness  of  Jesus  lay.  His  Father's 
business  was  the  sum  of  all  His  life.  .  .  . 
The  model  and  the  impulse  of  all  duty  He  car- 
ried in  His  own  filial  heart,  which  was  forever 
bearing  witness  to  Him  of  His  Father's  per- 
fectness.  His  incarnate  days,  with  all  their 
common  duties  held  and  illuminated  in  that 
high  consciousness  of  sonship,  must  have  been 
one  with  the  eternity  of  the  past  and  the  eter- 
nity that  was  to  be.  Duty  must  have  been  its 
own  revealer  and  its  own  reward.  Liberty 
must  have  been  sublimely  consistent  with  the 
most  scrupulous  obedience.  The  doing  right 
and  the  being  right  must  have  been  like  the 
sunshine  and  the  sun.  And  what  duty  was  to 
our  Master  it  shall  be  to  us  just  as  soon  as  we 
are  filled  with  His  idea, — just  as  soon  as  His 
spirit  bears  witness  with  our  spirits  that  we  are 

the  sons  of  God. 

VIII.  70. 

For  what  is  freedom  but  the  unfettered  use 
Of  all  the  powers  that  God  for  use  had  given  ? 
But  chiefly  this,  Him  first.  Him  last  to  view 
Through  meaner  powers  and  secondary  things 
Effulgent,    as    through   clouds    that    veil    His 

blaze.  S.   T.  COLKKIUGK, 


MARCH    i6.  75 


No  man  comcth  unto  the  FatJicr  but  by  Mc. 

John  xv.  6. 

BV  the  power  of  Christ  we  may  all  come 
near  to  God  too,  and  have  from  out  the 
open  door  of  His  sanctuary,  to  which  we  have 
fled.  His  view  of  mortal  life  and  all  its  inter- 
ests. For  us,  too,  this  world's  existence  may 
subside  into  its  clearly  marked  circles,  and  we 
may  see  as  God  sees  where  each  circle  ends; 
see  how  the  selfishnesses  soon  die  out;  see 
how  the  affections  sweep  out  into  wider  lines; 
see  how  nothing  but  the  highest  loves  reach 
out  into  infinity  and  send  life  forward  into 
eternity.  These  times,  when  we  are  nearest 
to  God,  are  the  times  when  this  world's  things 
show  their  true  values  to  us.  Do  you  not 
know  that  ?  Do  you  remember  how  it  all 
looked  to  you  when  you  came  home  from  the 
funeral,  not  morbid  with  hopeless  sorrow,  but 
seeming  to  be  above  the  world,  and  to  be 
standing  with  the  friend  who  had  gone,  in  the 
presence  of  the  throne  of  God  ?  Do  you 
remember  how  things  changed  their  relative 
importance  to  you  then,  how  the  last  were 
first  and  the  first  were  last,  as  they  shall  be 
on  the  judgment  day  ?  .  .  .  You  were  above 
complaints  and  small  trials.  You  had  entered 
into  the  sanctuary  of  God,  and  you  saw  the 
end  of  these  things. 

VI.    121. 

The  Almighty's  shadow  is  a  starlit  night; 
His  cloud  is  ever  full  of  hidden  light. 

Samuel  Longi-ellow. 


76  MARCH    17. 


THE  great  truth  of  Christianity,  the  great 
truth  of  Christ,  is  that  sin  is  unnatu- 
ral. .  .  .  And  that  which  is  unnatural  is  not 
by  any  necessity  permanent.  The  struggle  of 
all  nature  is  against  the  unnatural— to  dislodge 
it  and  cast  it  out.  That  beautiful  struggle 
pervades  the  world.  It  is  going  on  in  every 
clod  of  earth,  in  every  tree,  in  every  star,  and 
in  the  soul  of  man.  First  to  declare  and  then 
to  strengthen  that  struggle  in  the  soul  of  man 
was  the  work  of  Christ.  That  work  still  lin- 
gers and  fails  of  full  completion,  but  its  power 
Ts  present  in  the  world.  When  He  takes  pos- 
session of  a  nature  He  quickens  that  struggle 
into  life.  No  longer  can  that  nature  think 
itself  doomed  to  evil.  ...  The  wonder  is 
not  that  it  should  some  day  be  cast  out;  the 
wonder  is  that  it  should  ever  have  come  in. 
The  victory  promised  in  a  sinless  Son  of  man 
is  already  potentially  attained  in  the  intense 
conception  of  its  naturalness.  ^ 

Courage!— we  travel  through  a  darksome  cave; 
But  stfu,  as  nearer  to  the  light  we  draw. 
Fresh  o-ales  will  reach  us  from  the  upper  an". 
And  wholesome  dews  of  heaven  our  forehead 

The  darkness  lighten  more,  till  full  of  awe. 
We  stand  in  the  open  sunshine— unaware. 

R.  G.  Trencu. 


MARCH    i8.  77 


YOU  never  did  a  sin  that  did  not  give  its 
warning  to  you  before  you  did  it.  .  .  . 
Perhaps  you  did  not  hear,  but  it  was  not  that 
the  warning  bell  did  not  ring.  Perhaps  you 
called  that  first  sign  of  weakness  a  mere  acci- 
dent, and  tried  to  believe  that  it  meant  noth- 
ing, but  if  you  gave  your  thought  to  it  you 
knew  ...  it  was  the  house's  feeble  timbers 
creaking  before  their  fall.  There  are  such 
warnings  of  coming  sins  that  every  one  of  us 
has  received — sins  yet  undone;  sins  which,  it 
may  be,  are  to  make  our  whole  life  dark  some 
day,  whose  threatening  we  can  read,  if  we  are 
wise  enough,  in  something  that  has  come  to  us 
already.   .    .   . 

Life  is  full  of  such  warnings.  No  man 
grows  to  be  more  than  a  mere  boy  without 
learning  on  what  side  of  his  moral  nature  he 
will  fall  if  he  falls  at  all.  Every  one  of  us 
knows,  who  is  in  the  least  thoughtful,  what 
sort  of  villain  he  would  be  if  he  grew  villain- 
ous. Thank  God,  these  warnings  may  save 
us  from  the  things  they  warn  us  of.  These 
blessed  bells  that  ring  out  in  the  darkness  may 
turn  us  resolutely  off  from  the  cruel  surf  that 
roars  behind  them. 


VII.    121,    122. 


Man  is  no  star,  but  a  quick  coal 

Of  mortal  fire: 
Who  blows  it  not,  nor  doth  control 

A  faint  desire, 
Lets  his  own  ashes  choke  his  soul. 

George  Herbert, 


78  MARCH    19. 


The  mystery  of  iniquity. — 2  Thess.  ii.  7. 

T^HERE  is  something  oppressive,  something 
^  terrible,  in  this  great  mysterious  pres- 
ence of  sin  right  in  our  midst,  so  that  nothing 
goes  on  save  in  its  shadow, — no  state  is 
formed,  no  family  grows  up,  no  social  com- 
pact is  organized,  no  character  matures  with- 
out its  blighting  mixture.  Right  in  our  midst, 
and  yet  no  voice  of  man  or  God  is  opened  to 
tell  us  how  it  came  here.  .  .  .  [Yet]  there  was 
a  time  when  it  was  not,  there  was  a  moment 
when  it  began  to  be.  .  .  .  There  is  no  other 
way  of  explaining  the  strange  fact  that  amid 
all  the  personal  badness,  and  social  corruption 
that  is  in  the  world,  the  human  mind  has  been 
able  to  preserve  the  ideal  of  a  pure  society  and 
a  perfect  life,  to  dream  of  it,  sometimes  to 
strive  after  it,  except  by  acknowledging  the 
reality  of  an  entrance  of  iniquity  into  the 
world,  and  looking  back  to  a  time  before  that 
invasion  when  the  world  was  sinless. 

VI.  9.  4. 

My  own  hope  is,  a  sun  will  pierce 

The  thickest  cloud  earth  ever  stretched; 

That  after  Last  returns  the  First, 

Though  a  wide  compass  round  be  fetched; 

That  what  began  best  can't  end  worst, 
Nor  what  God  blest  once,  prove  accurst. 

Browning. 


MARCH    20.  79 


That  ivhosoever  beliei^eth   i?i  Htjn   should  not 
perish^  but  have  everlasting  life. — John  iii.  16. 

Wl''.  have  spoken  of  the  m3'sterioLisness  of 
sni  ill  its  origin  and  operations.  It 
would  be  cruel,  false,  and  unchristian  if  I 
closed  without  telling  you  of  the  diviner  mys- 
tery in  which  human  iniquity  finds  its  cure. 
The  first  thought  round  which  the  grand  won- 
der of  the  atonement  grows  into  shape  is  this 
thought  of  sin  as  a  real  live  thing  standing 
forth  to  be  fought  with,  to  be  conquered,  to 
be  killed.  .  .  .  To  meet  that  enmity,  to  slay 
that  giant,  Christ  comes  forth  with  his  won- 
derful nature.  He  undertakes  a  distinct  and 
dreadful  struggle.  We  see  its  outward  mani- 
festation in  the  agony  of  the  cross.  All  the 
deeper  battle  goes  on  out  of  our  sight.  We 
know  not  how  it  fares  till  the  word  of  God 
comes  to  tell  us  that  the  victory  is  won  by  our 
Redeemer,  and  that  Satan  is  trodden  into  death 
by  the  dying  Christ.  Of  all  the  Mystery  of 
Iniquity,  where  is  the  Mystery  like  this  ?  You 
see  how  true  a  mystery  it  is.  Nothing  but  the 
fact  we  know.  .  .  .  That  shining,  si)lendid 
fact,  that  gracious,  glorious  fact — the  fact  of 
the  Lord's  victory  and  of  Satan's  fall — stands 
forth  so  clear  that  none  can  doubt  it.  It  takes 
its  place  as  the  one  certain,  central  fact  of 
hope.  By  it  the  living  live,  by  it  the  dying 
die;  in  it  the  glorified  rejoice  forever. 

VI.  14,  15. 


8o  MARCH    21. 


Then  came  the  disciples  to  Jesus  apart ^  and  said, 
Why  could  not  we  cast  hi?n  out  ? 

Matt.  xvii.  9. 

HE  tells  them  that  the  reason  of  their  failure 
is  that  they' have  been  trying  to  do  by 
themselves  what  they  can  only  do  when  He  is 
behind  them,  when  their  natures  are  so  open 
that  His  strength  can  freely  flow  out  through 
them.  .  .  .  Look  at  the  artist's  chisel. 
'*  Why  cannot  I  carve  ?  "  it  cries.  And  then 
the  artist  comes  and  seizes  it.  The  chisel  lays 
itself  into  his  hand,  and  is  obedient  to  him. 
That  obedience  is  faith.  It  opens  the  chan- 
nels between  the  sculptor's  brain  and  the  hard 
steel.  Thought,  feeling,  imagination,  skill 
flow  down  from  the  deep  chambers  of  the 
artist's  soul  to  the  chisel's  edge.  The  sculp- 
tor and  the  chisel  are  not  two,  but  one.  It  is 
the  unit  which  they  make  that  carves  the 
statue. 

This  is  our  principle,  then.  The  unit  of 
power  for  moral  victory — in  other  words,  for 
goodness — on  the  earth  is  not  man  and  is  not 
God.  It  is  God  and  man,  not  two,  but  one, 
not  meeting  accidentally,  not  running  together 
in  emergencies  only  to  separate  again  when 
the  emergency  is  over;  it  is  God  and  man 
belonging  essentially  together,  God  filling 
man,  man  opening  his  life  by  faith  to  be  a  part 
of  God's,  as  the  gulf  opens  itself  and  is  part 
of  the  great  ocean. 

III.  181,  1S5. 


MARCH    22.  8i 


When  I  afH  weaky  then  I  am  strong. 

2  Cor.  xii.  lo. 

J  F  the  condition  for  which  man  was  made  was 
^  a  related,  a  bound  up,  a  dependent  condi- 
tion, then  the  highest  human  happiness  must 
always  come  with  the  most  complete  conform- 
ity to  that  first  idea  of  human  life.  If  depend- 
ence, then,  be  happiness,  .  .  .  independence 
of  God,  self-sufficiency,  must  be  unhappiness. 
And  since  suffering,  in  all  its  various  depart- 
ments, is  the  breaking  up  of  self-sufficiency,  of 
self-confidence,  is  it  not  evident  that,  rightly 
used,  it  may  be  the  setting  free  of  the  human 
soul  from  an  unnatural  and  forced  condition, 
into  its  natural,  intended,  and  so  happiest 
life  ?  .  .  .  Anything  in  body,  brain,  or  heart 
that  gets  that  idea  of  insufficiency  home  to  us, 
may  set  us  to  digging  beneath  the  self-surface 
of  our  vale  of  misery  to  find  the  God  below 
for  which  the  thirsty  soul  was  made.  .  .  . 
Prosperity  is  unconscious  of  God.  Suffering, 
whether  we  will  or  no,  has  to  be  conscious  of 
him. 

VI.  29,  30. 

Submit  thy  sorrow  and  thy  soul  to  God* 
And  learn  what  peace  it  is  to  kiss  His  rod, 
Who  answers  wishes  ere  they  turn  to  prayers. 
And  with  His  blessings  takes  us  unawares. 
Abraham  Percy  Miller. 


82  MARCH    23. 


No  man  can  say  that  Jesus  is  the  Lord  but  by 
the  Holy  Ghost. — i  Cor.  xii.  3. 

NO  soul  is  too  low  to  be  brought  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  the  place  where,  answering 
back  by  the  divine  within  it  to  the  divine 
above  it,  it  may  say  that  "  Jesus  is  the  Lord." 
No  soul  is  too  high  to  find  in  that  announce- 
ment of  its  faith  the  consummation  of  its  life. 
Here,  then,  is  where  the  highest  and  the  low- 
est meet.  Here  is  where  they  have  met 
through  all  the  ages.  Glorious  thinkers,  great 
strong  workers,  sufferers  whose  lives  were 
miracles  of  patience,  all  of  these  singing  as 
they  went  their  ways,  "  Jesus  is  Lord,  Jesus  is 
Lord."  And  all  around  them,  and  in  among 
them,  dull,  plodding  souls,  and  minds  whose 
thought  was  all  confused  and  bewildered  with 
emotion,  and  little  children,  with  their  crude 
clear  pictures  in  their  simple  brains,  all  these 
too  singing,  in  their  several  tones  and  with 
their  several  clearness,  "  Jesus  is  Lord,  Jesus 
is  Lord."   .    .   . 

And  oh,  my  friends,  remember  that  the  own- 
ing of  Christ's  mastery  here  is  but  the  begin- 
ning of  the  participation  in  Christ's  glory  in 
heaven.  VI.  106,  107. 

Oh,  let  Christ  and  sunshine  in, 
Let  His  Love  its  sweet  way  win! 
Nothing  human  is  too  mean 
To  receive  the  King  unseen; 
Not  a  pleasure  or  a  care 
But  celestial  robes  may  wear: 
Impulse,  thought,  and  action  may 
Live  immortally  to-day.      Lucy  Larcom. 


MARCH    24.  83 


If  ye  have  faith  ^  and  doubt  not. 

Matt.  xxi.  21. 

GET  rid  of  the  awful  assumption  that  it 
[sin]  is  bound  up  in  your  constitution; 
cease  to  be  a  weak  fatalist  about  it.  .  .  .  There 
are  few  things  more  constantly  marvellous 
about  our  human  nature  than  its  power  of  ac- 
climating itself  in  moral  and  spiritual  regions 
where  it  once  seemed  impossible  that  it  should 
live  at  all.  The  tree  upon  the  hillside  says: 
"  Here  and  here  alone  can  I  live.  Here  my 
fathers  lived  in  all  their  generations.  .  .  . 
Take  me  down  to  the  plain  and  I  shall  die." 
The  gardener  knows  better.  He  takes  the 
doubting  and  despairing  plant  and  carries  it, 
even  against  its  will,  to  the  broad  valley,  and 
sets  it  where  the  cold  winds  shall  not  smite  it, 
and  where  the  rich  ground  feeds  it  with  luxu- 
riance. And  almost  as  they  touch  each  other 
the  ground  and  the  root  claim  one  another, 
and  rich  revelations  of  its  own  possibility 
flood  the   poor  plant  and  fill  it  full  of  marvel 

with  itself. 

VI.  68. 


For  all  grows  sweet  in  Thee 
Since  Thou  didst  gather  us  in  One,  and  bring 
This  fad'ng  flower  of  our  humanity 
To  perfect  blossoming. 

Dora  Greenwell. 


84  MARCH    25, 


Blessed  are  the  pure  i?i  hearty  for  they  shall  see 
God.—^KHT.  V.  8. 

THROUGH  the  mists  of  long  and  devout 
tradition  which  have  obscured  her  char- 
acter and  made  her  very  person  almost  myth- 
ical, we  are  surprised  sometimes  in  reading  the 
Gospels  at  the  clearness  and  simplicity  with 
which  Mary  the  mother  of  our  Lord  stands 
out  before  us  there.  She  speaks  only  on  three 
occasions,  but  .  .  ,  those  three  utterances  of 
hers  are  like  three  clear  notes  of  a  bell,  that 
show  how  sound  and  rich  its  metal  is.  Think 
what  they  were.  In  the  presence  of  the  mes- 
senger Avho  comes  to  tell  her  of  her  great 
privilege  she  bows  her  head  and  says,  "  Behold 
the  handmaid  of  the  Lord.  Be  it  unto  me 
according  to  thy  word."  When  she  finds  her 
Son  in  the  temple  she  cries  out  to  Him,  "  Son, 
why  hast  Thou  thus  dealt  with  us  ?  Thy  father 
and  I  have  sought  Thee  sorrowing."  When 
she  stands  with  Him  before  the  puzzled  guests 
at  Cana  she  turns  to  the  servants  and  says, 
"Whatsoever  He  saith  unto  you,  do  it." 
The  young  soul's  consecration!  The  mother's 
overrunning  love!  The  disciple's  perfect  loy- 
alty! What  can  be  clearer  than  the  simple, 
true,  brave,  loving  woman  that  those  words 
reveal? 

V.  340. 

Still  to  the  lowly  soul 

He  doth  himself  impart. 
And  for  His  cradle  and  His  throne 

Chooseth  the  pure  in  heart. 

Keble. 


MARCH    26.  85 


In  Thy  light  shall  we  see  light. 

Ps.  xxxvi.  9. 

STAND  where  you  cannot  see  man's  great- 
ness, and  the  Incarnation  seems  a  wild, 
inexphcable  dream.  Stand  where  no  music 
reaches  you  from  the  deep  harmonies  of  man's 
present  spiritual  life,  and  it  is  out  of  your 
power  to  believe  in  heaven.  Lose  sight  of 
sin,  and  the  darker  possibilities  of  eternity  are 
hideous  impossibilities.  The  religious  truth 
which  you  see  by  itself,  out  of  its  position  in 
the  great  whole  which  ought  to  hold  it,  fails 
to  bear  witness  of  its  truth.  Strive  then  for 
wholes,  and  let  the  parts  reveal  themselves 
within  them.  Strive  for  God,  who  is  the 
whole.  ...  By  obedience,  by  communion, 
climb  to  the  height  where  you  shall  be  with 
God,  and  then  the  truths  about  God  shall  open 
their  reasonableness,  their  richness,  and  their 
harmony. 

VI.  220. 


For  no  man  by  himself  is  able  to  investi- 
gate this  mystery; 
Nor  is  it  grasped  by  human  wisdom; 
But  rather  by  the  strength  of  faith, 
And  the  intuition  of  a  pure  mind, 
Enlightened  from  above. 

Thomas  a  Kemi-is. 


86  MARCH    27. 


'T^HE  age  of  real  faith  does  not  covet  again 
^  the  chains  of  superstition.  The  world  at 
peace  does  not  ask  to  be  shaken  once  more  by 
the  earthquakes  of  war.  But  faith  does  feel  the 
beauty  of  complete  surrender  which  supersti- 
tion kept  for  its  sole  spiritual  virtue;  and 
peace,  with  its  diffused  responsibility,  is 
kindled  at  thought  of  heroic  and  unquestion- 
ing obedience  which  the  education  of  war  pro- 
duced. Still  let  superstition  and  war  lie  dead. 
We  will  not  call  them  back  to  life;  but  we  will 
borrow  their  jewels  of  silver  and  jewels  of  gold 
as  we  go  forth  into  the  wilderness  to  worship 
our  God  with  larger  worship.  Do  you  not  feel 
this  is  in  all  the  best  progress  ?  Do  you  not  see 
it  in  the  eyes  of  mankind,  in  the  depths  of  the 
eyes  of  mankind  always,  as-it  turns  away  from 
the  dead  forms  of  its  old  masters  and  goes 
forth  into  the  years  to  be;  the  hoarded  power 
of  the  past  glowing  beneath  the  satisfaction 
of  the  present  and  the  fiery  hope  of  the  un- 
known future  ?  VI.  62. 

Out  of  the  years  bloom  the  eternities! 

And  nothing  dies  that  ever  was  alive; 

All  that  endears 
And  sanctifies  the  human  must  survive; 
Of  God  they  are,  and  in  His  smile  they  thrive — 

The  immortal  years! 

Lucy  Larcom. 


MARCH    28.  87 


They  say  unto  Him,  We  have  here  but  five 
loaves,  and  two  fishes.  He  said,  Bring  them 
hither  to  vie. — Matt.  xiv.  17,  18. 

SURELY,  the  act  is  a  very  striking  one.  .  .  . 
Our  first  notions  of  a  Deity  are  of  One 
who  is  above  all  law  and  order  and  economy. 
Let  the  poor  be  niggardly,  a  slave  to  rules, 
counting  over  his  little  stock,  squeezing  every 
penny  that  he  pays;  but  let  the  All-Powerful 
be  open-handed,  counting  as  nothing  what 
other  beings  must  save,  originating  life  when- 
ever life  is  needed,  full  of  an  easy  spontaneity, 
flinging  the  miracles  of  creation  everywhere. 
But  it  is  striking  to  see  how,  as  men  go  on  and 
learn  more  of  God,  these  ideas  which  were  at 
first  cast  almost  indignantly  out  of  their  con- 
ception of  Him,  gradually  come  back  and  are 
set  in  the  place  of  highest  honor.  It  is  God's 
highest  glory  that  He  is  a  God  of  Law.  Con- 
tinuousness  is  the  crown  of  His  government. 
That  He  brings  every  future  out  of  some  past 
is  the  charm  of  all  His  government.  That 
He  lets  nothing  go  to  waste  is  the  highest  per- 
fection of  His  boundless  resource.  Continuity 
and  economy  are  His  solemn  foot-prints  by 
which  we  trace  His  presence  in  our  world. 
The  need  of  evolution,  the  necessity  that 
everything  which  is  to  be  should  come  out  of 
something  which  has  been  before,  and  the 
abhorrence  of  waste, — continuity  and  econ- 
omy,— these  are  the  proof-marks  of  Divinity. 

n.  129, 130. 

Earth  holds  heaven  in  the  bud  .-  our  perfection  there  has 
to  be  developed  out  cf  our  imperfection  here. 

Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


MARCH    29. 


THERE  is  the  surface  sight  of  life,  which  is 
bright  and  enthusiastic.  There  is  the 
sight  of  life  which  is  deeper  than  this,  which 
is  sad  and  puzzled.  There  is  the  deepest 
sight  of  all,  which  is  bright  again  with  a  truer 
light,  and  enthusiastic  again  with  a  soberer 
but  a  more  genuine  happiness.  .  .  .  There 
come  forth  adaptations  for  the  higher  work  in 
things  which  have  seemed  wholly  unfitted  to 
produce  the  lower.  Things  which  never  could 
have  made  a  man  happy,  develop  a  power,  to 
make  him  strong.  Strength  and  not  happi- 
ness, or  rather  only  that  happiness  which 
comes  by  strength,  is  recognized  as  the  end  of 
human  living.  II.  151,  153. 

"  Give  me  the  wine  of  happiness,"   I  cried, 
"  The  bread  of  life! — Oh  ye  benign,  unknown, 
Immortal  powers ! — I  crave  them  for  mine  own ; 
I  am  athirst,  I  will  not  be  denied 
Though   hell  were  up   in   arms!  " — No  sound 

replied; 
But  turning  back  to  my  rude  board  and  lone. 
My  soul,  confounded,  there  beheld — a  stone, 
Pale  water  in  a  shallow  cup  beside! 
With  gushing  tears,  in  utter  hopelessness, 
I  stood  and  gazed.      Then   rose  a  voice  that 

spoke: 
*'  God  gave  thee  this,  and  what   He  gives  will 

bless." 
And  'neath  the  hands  that  trembling  took  and 

broke, 
Lo,  truly,  a  sweet  miracle  divine — 
The  stone  turned  bread,  the  water  ruby  wine! 

Stuart  Sterne. 


MARCH    30.  89 


If  He  should  make  my  web  a  blight 
Of  life's  fair  picture  of  delight, 
My  heart's  content  would  find  it  right. 

Emerson. 

AMONG  the  tests  of  men  there  stands  very 
high  this  power  to  do  without.  .  .  , 
But  then  this  power  of  doing  without  some 
things  is,  at  its  bottom,  a  power  of  not  doing 
without  some  other  things.  We  are  rescued 
from  the  abject  slavery  of  the  lower  by  enter- 
ing into  the  absolute  servantship  of  the  higher. 
He  to  whom  honor  is  necessary  can  do  with- 
out money.  He  who  must  have  goodness  can 
get  along  without  praise.  He  who  must  have 
God's  communion  can  do  without  the  sweet 
companionships  of  fellow-men.  He  who  can- 
not lose  his  eternity  can  easily  cast  aside  time 
and  the  body  which  belongs  to  it,  and  by  the 
martyr's  slow  or  sudden  death  exchange 
the  visible  for  the  invisible,  the  symbol  for 
the  reality.  Nay,  he  who  values  most  intensely 
his  friend's  or  his  child's  eternal  life  can,  not 
easily  but  still  not  grudgingly,  let  go  the  joy 
and  daily  comfort  of  his  friend's  or  his  child's 
hourly  presence,  and  see  him  die  that  he  may 
enter  into  life.  On  these  two  ladders,  as  it 
were,  by  these  two  scales,  the  order  of  human 
character  mounts  up, — the  power  to  do  with- 
out and  the  power  not  to  do  without. 

I.  292. 

Not  for  ourselves  alone  we  strive. 
Since  thy  perfection  manifest 
Bid^^  self  resign  what  self  desired. 
Postponing  good  for  best. 

Bliss  Carman. 


90  MARCH    31. 


We  wrestle  .   .   .  agai?ist  powers. 

Ephes.  vi.  12. 

ST.  PAUL  believed  in  spirits  good  and  bad. 
The  beauty  of  his  belief  in  them  was 
that,  different  as  they  might  be  from  us  in  the 
conditions  of  their  life,  they  still  belonged  to 
the  same  great  moral  system  to  which  he  be- 
longed. The  good  spirits  were  not  to  be  pro- 
pitiated, and  the  evil  spirits  were  not  to  be 
disarmed  by  magic  and  incantations.  He  who 
did  righteousness  called  to  himself  the  most 
mysterious  strength  of  the  unseen  worlds.  .  .  . 
For  him  all  good  beings  fought;  against  his 
simple  righteousness  all  evil  beings  would  beat 
themselves  in  vain,  and  ultimately  must  go 
down  and  fail,  here  or  beyond  the  stars.  That 
is  a  noble  faith.  In  the  simplicity  and  gran- 
deur of  a  faith  like  that,  man  will  some  day 
come  once  more  to  the  now  almost  lost  belief 
in  the  connection  of  his  life  with  unseen  spirit- 
ual powers. 

VI.  75. 


While  we  discern  it  not,  and  least  believe, 
On  stairs  invisible  betwixt  His  heaven 
And  our  unholy,  sinful,  toilsome  earth 
Celestial  messengers  of  loftiest  good 
Upward  and  downward  pass  continually. 
Arthur  Hugh  Clough. 


APRIL    I.  91 


MEN  talk — very  religious  men — as  if  God 
were  a  sort  of  reserve  force,  to  be  called 
in  when  He  was  needed,  a  sort  of  last  resort 
when  man's  strength  failed.  .  .  .  The  thought 
of  God  which  Christ  came  to  reveal,  the 
thought  of  God  of  which  all  Christ's  own  life 
was  full,  is  something  totally  different  from 
that.  To  Christ's  thought  God  and  man  are 
part  of  one  system — one  structure,  one  work- 
ing-force. To  separate  them  is  not  simply  to 
deny  man  a  power  that  he  needs  :  it  is  to  break 
a  unity,  and  to  set  a  part  of  the  power  to  the 
attempt  to  do  what  the  whole  power  ought  to 
do  as  one.  ...  It  is  engine  and  steam  that 
are  to  make  the  running  power.  It  is  artist 
and  chisel  that  are  to  carve  the  statue.  It  is 
God  and  you  that  live  your  life.  For  you  to 
try  to  live  it  alone  is  to  try  to  do  all  the  work 
with  one  j^art  of  the  power.  God  is  not  a 
crutch  coming  in  to  help  your  lameness,  un- 
necessary to  you  if  you  had  all  your  strength. 
He  is  the  breath  in  your  lungs.  The  stronger 
you  are,  the  more  thoroughly  you  are  your- 
self, the  more  you  need  of  it,  the  more  you 
need  of  Him. 

VI.  102,  103. 


He  breathed  forth  His  spirit 
Into  the  slumbering  dust,  and  upright  stand- 
ing, it  laid  its 
Hand  on   its  heart,  and  felt  it  was  warm  with 

a  flame  out  of  heaven. 
Quench,  oh,  quench  not  that  flame!     It  is  the 
breath  of  your  being. 

Longfellow. 


92  APRIL   2. 


IN  a  picture  by  Domenichino  at  Bologna,  an 
angel  stands  at  the  foot  of  the  empty  cross, 
and  tries  with  his  finger  one  of  the  sharp  points 
in  the  crown  of  thorns  which  the  Saviour  had 
worn  during  His  passion.  It  is  all  a  sad  in- 
explicable wonder  to  him.  It  appeals  to  no 
experience  of  wickedness  and  woe  in  his  pure 
and  angelic  nature.  But  when  you  or  I  take 
the  crown  of  thorns  into  our  hands  we  know  in 
our  own  hearts  the  meanness,  the  jealousy,  the 
hatred  which  it  represents.  .  .  .  With  simple 
wonder  an  angel  might  walk  through  our 
State  Prison  halls;  but  a  man  must  walk  there 
full  of  humbleness  and  charity;  for,  as  the 
best  man  that  ever  lived  finds  something  of 
common  humanity  in  us  which  makes  his  good- 
ness'seem  not  impossible  to  us,  so  the  worst  of 
men  stirs  by  the  sight  of  his  human  sin  some 
sense  of  what  human  power  of  sinfulness  we 

too  possess. 

^  I.  251. 

How  much,  preventing  God,  how  much  I  owe 
To  the  defences  Thou  hast  round  me  set,— 

Example,  custom,  fear,  occasion  slow,— 
These  scorned  bondsmen  were  my  parapet. 
I  dare  not  peep  over  this  parapet 

To  gaui^^e  with  glance  the  roaring  gulf  below, 
The  depths  of  sin  to  which  I  had  descended. 
Had  not  these  me  against  myself  defended. 

Emerson. 


APRIL  3.  93 


MEN  cry  to-day,  "  Christianity  is  the  re- 
ligion of  the  rich  and  comfortable,  "and 
while  they  speak  their  cry  is  drowned  in  the 
rush  of  the  poor,  the  hungry,  and  the  wretched 
to  some  common  men's  revival.  They  cry 
again,  "The  Christian  belief  belongs  to  the 
ignorant,"  and  lo,  the  wisest  thought  of  the 
world  comes  back  again,  as  it  ife  ever  coming, 
to  the  mystery  of  Christ  and  of  His  treatment 
of  the  soul  of  man.  It  is  not  that  they  have 
mistaken  the  class  to  which  they  should  assign 
the  Christian  faith.  Their  mistake  is  in  giving 
it  to  any  class.  It  belongs  to  the  individual. 
It  always  has  its  eyes  fastened  on  him.  One 
of  the  noblest  functions  of  Christianity  in  the 
world  is  to  lie  behind  the  class  crystallizations 
of  mankind,  like  a  solvent  into  which  they 
shall  return  and  blend  with  one  another, — to 
crystallize,  no  doubt,  again,  but  always  to  be 
reminded  that  the  classes  into  which  they  crys- 
tallize are  lesser  facts  than  the  manhood  into 
which  they  are  repeatedly  dissolved. 

VIII.  114. 

For  the  love  of  God  is  broader 

Than  the  measures  of  man's  mind; 

And  the  heart  of  the  Eternal 
Is  most  wonderfully  kind. 

But  we  make  His  love  too  narrow 

By  false  limits  of  our  own; 
And  we  magnify  His  strictness 

With  a  zeal  He  will  not  own. 

There  is  plentiful  redemption 
In  the  blood  that  has  been  shed; 

There  is  joy  for  all  the  members 

In  the  sorrows  of  the  Head.        Faber. 


94  APRIL   4. 


Through  Jesus  Christ. — Rom.  vi.  23. 

IN  Jesus  of  Nazareth  appeared  the  Mediator 
by  whom  was  to  be  the  Atonement.  His 
was  the  life  and  nature  which,  standing  be- 
tween the  Godhood  and  the  manhood,  was  to 
bridge  the  gulf  and  make  the  firm,  bright  road 
over  which  blessing  and  prayer  might  pass  and 
repass  with  confident,  golden  feet  for  ever.  .  .  . 
But  from  which  side  did  the  bridge  spring  ? 
Who  moved  toward  the  reconciliation  ?  It  is 
the  most  precious  part  of  our  belief  that  it  was 
with  God  that  the  activity  began.  It  is  the 
very  soul  of  the  Gospel,  as  I  read  it,  that  the 
Father's  heart,  sitting  above  us  in  His  holi- 
ness, yearned  for  us  as  we  lay  down  here  in 
our  sin.  And  when  there  was  no  man  to  make 
an  intercession,  He  sent  His  Son  to  tell  us  of 
His  love,  to  live  with  us,  to  die  for  us,  to  lay  His 
life  like  a  strong  bridge  out  from  the  divine 
side  of  existence,  over  which  we  might  walk, 
fearfully  but  safely,  back  into  the  divinity 
where  we  belonged.  Through  Him  we  have 
access  to  the  Father.  As  the  end  was  divine 
so  the  method  is  divine.  As  it  is  to  God  that 
we  come,  so  it  is  God  who  brings  us  there.  I 
can  think  nothing  else  without  dishonoring 
the  tireless,  quenchless  love  of  God.      i.  237. 

The  exhibition  of  so  great  a  love  and  mercy  is 

a  very  deep  abyss, 
And  as  it  were  a  divine  sea  which  can   not  be 

swum  over. 
Yet  in  which  the  spiritual  fishes,  small  and  great, 
Whom  Thou  hast  inclosed  in  the  net  of  faith. 
Swim  to  and  fro.  Thomas  A  Kempis. 


APRIL   5.  95 


T^HERE  comes  no  real  content  to  the  seeker 
^  after  goodness  until,  behind  all  the  pat- 
terns which  hold  themselves  up  to  him  with 
pride  and  boasting  in  their  practicalness,  at 
last  he  hears  the  voice  of  the  sublime  imprac- 
ticable standard,  far  out  beyond  them  all,  call- 
ing to  him,  "  Be  ye  perfect  as  your  Father  in 
heaven  is  perfect."  Then  the  finite  has  heard 
the  voice  of  the  infinite  to  which  it  belongs,  to 
which  it  always  will  respond,  and  straightway 
it  settles  down  to  its  endless  journey  and  goes 

on  content. 

III.  121. 

I  toil,  but  I  must  also  climb; 
What  soul  was  ever  quite  at  ease 
Shut  in  by  earthly  boundaries  ? 

I  am  not  glad  till  I  have  known 
Life  that  can  lift  me  from  my  own: 
A  loftier  level  must  be  won, 
A  mightier  strength  to  lean  upon. 

And  heaven  draws  near  as  I  ascend; 
The  breeze  invites,  the    stars  befriend: 
All  things  are  beckoning  towards  the  Best: 
I  climb  to  Thee,  my  God,  for  rest. 

Lucy  Larcom. 


96  APRIL   6. 


TS  it  nut  wonderful  to  see  how  few  sins  in  this 
*  world  are  done  flatly,  fairly,  blankly,  as 
sins  ?  We  carry  our  consciences  by  side  at- 
tacks, by  elaborate  strategies  and  artifices. 
We  almost  never  charge  up  in  the  face  of  our 
sense  of  right  and  take  it  by  assault.  It  is  a 
very  rare  thing,  I  think  much  rarer  than  we 
are  often  ready  to  suppose,  for  a  man  to  say 
to  himself,  this  thing  is  bad,  bad  and  not 
good,  certainly  and  necessarily  nothing  but 
bad,  and  yet  I  will  do  it.  .  .  .  Covetousness 
dresses  itself  in  the  decent  robes  of  prudence, 
idleness  calls  itself  innocence,  prodigality  goes 
garbed  as  generosity,  they  all  masquerade 
through  society  and  trap  the  souls  of  men.  .  .  . 
We  have  our  sins  here  all  decently  labelled,  all 
decently  clad.  What  if  He  came,  the  Spirit 
of  all  truth,  and  wiped  out  every  false  name 
and  wrote  up  every  true  one  I  We  tremble  to 
think  of  what  these  walls  must  see.  We 
should  not  dare  look  upon  one  another's 
shame,  bowed  down  each  with  the  supreme 
shamefulness  of  his  own. 

VI.  II,  13. 


Into  the  truth  of  things, 
Out  of  their  falseness  rise,  and  reach  thou,  and 
remain. 

Browning. 


APRIL    7.  97 


If  ajiy  ?nan  will  do  His  willy  he  shall  know  of 
the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  of  God^  or  whether  I 
speak  of  myself  . — John  vii.  17. 

I  HAVE  been  struck  by  seeing  how  favorite 
a  text  that  has  become  in  our  day.  .  .  . 
Many  and  many  a  soul  has  found  that  that  was 
indeed  the  message  that  it  needed.  Turning 
away  from  vain  disputes  of  words,  leaving 
theological  subtleties  alone,  just  trying  to 
turn  what  it  knew  of  Christ  into  a  life,  it  has 
found  that  it  has  become  assured  of  His  divin- 
ity, sure  that  His  doctrine  was  of  God.  Such 
souls  have  not  found  that  the  thousand  curious 
questions  of  theology  were  answered,  and  all 
the  mystery  rolled  away  out  of  the  sky  of 
truth.  Christ  did  not  promise  that.  But  they 
have  found  what  He  did  promise:  that  com- 
ing near  to  Him  in  obedience,  they  have  been 
made  sure  of  the  true  divinity  that  was  in  Him 
and  in  the    teachings  that  he  gave.   .   .   . 

It  is  like  all  Christ's  teachings, — one  utter- 
ance of  an  essential  universal  truth.  Every- 
where the  flower  of  obedience  is  intelligence. 
.  .  .  Obey  Jesus  with  cordial  loyalty  and  you 
will  understand  Jesus.  Not  by  studying  Him, 
but  by  doing  His  will,  shall  you  learn  how 
divine  ?Ie  is.  Obedience  completes  itself  in 
understanding. 

I.  32. 


For  meek  Obedience,  too,  is  Light, 
And  following  that  is  following  Him. 

James  Russell  Lowell. 
7 


APRIL   8. 


In  the  wilderness  shall  waters  break  out,  and 
streams  in  the  desert. — Is.  xxxv.  6. 

A  MAN  loses  his  friend  and  he  is  sorry;  he 
loses  his  property  and  he  is  crushed;  he 
loses  his  health  and  he  almost  gives  up;  but 
there  is  a  yet  untasted  woe  of  which  that  man 
knows  nothing.  .  .  .  Let  him  find  himself 
a  sinner,  let  him  stand  guilty,  guilty,  without  a 
plea,  without  a  hope,  just  with  his  frightened 
and  naked  soul  before  the  eye  of  God,  and 
then  in  the  conviction  of  sin,  then  he  has  found 
what  suffering  is.  .  .  .  He  walks  the  valley 
of  his  misery  and  all  is  dark.  And  can  this 
valley  break  forth  into  wells  ?  Can  these  dry 
pools  be  filled  with  water  ?  .  .  .  Tell  me, 
all  ye  who,  bowed  down  in  the  dust  in  the 
humiliation  of  your  worthlessness,  have  heard 
there,  with  your  face  close  to  the  ground, 
what  you  could  never  hear  while  you  stood 
upright,  the  streams  of  pardon  running  sweet 
music  down  below, — tell  me,  is  not  the  well  of 
richest  joy  right  here  in  the  midst  of  the  val- 
ley of  completest  sorrow  ? — where  sin  abounded 
does  not  grace  much  more  abound  ? 

VI.  31. 

Yea,  though  I  sin,  my  sin  is  not  to  death; 

In  my  repentance  I  have  joy,  such  joy 

That  I  could  almost  sin  to  seek  for  it — 

Yes,  if  I  did  not  hate  it  and  abhor, 

And  know  that  Thou  abhorr'st  and  hatest  it. 

And  will'st,  for  an  example  to  the  reSt, 

That  Thine  elect  should  keep  themselves  from 

it. 

Arthur  Hugh  Clough. 


APRIL   9.  99 


THE  truth  which  God  gives  us  is  like  the 
wheat  that  a  bounteous  country  sends 
into  the  city.  It  is  all  the  same  wheat;  but 
men  go  and  buy  it  and  eat  it,  and  this  same 
identical  wheat  is  turned  into  different  sorts 
of  force  in  different  men.  It  is  turned  into 
bartering  force  in  one,  and  thinking  force  in 
another,  and  singing  force  in  another,  and 
governing  force  in  another.  It  is  made  mani- 
fold as  soon  as  it  passes  into  men.  So  I  think 
every  minister  finds  that,  as  his  disciples  grow 
older,  if  he  has  really  succeeded  in  getting  the 
truth  to  be  their  truth,  they  grow  into  more 
various  forms  of  Christian  charity  and  useful- 
ness. Each  grows  more  evidently  to  be  not 
merely  a  Christian,  but  the  Christian  that  God 
intended  him  to  be.  They  think  more.  They 
think  differently.  The  pure  white  light  breaks 
itself  to  each  in  different  colors. 

Let  us  rejoice  in  the  clear  individuality  of 
maturing  Christian  life.  Its  one  principle  is 
still  identical;  and  so  it  already  prophesies 
heaven,  where  we  are  sure  we  shall  be  all 
different  illustrations  of  the  one  same  grace, 
showing  different  characters,  set  to  different 
works,  but  all  moved  by  one  spirit — all  illustra- 
tions of  the  one  same  grace  still.       11.  44,  45. 

Lord,  make  me  one  with  Thine  own  faithful  ones, 
Thy  Saints  who   love  Thee,  and  are  loved  by 

Thee, 
Till  the  day  break  and  till  the  shadows  flee, — 
At  one  with  them  in  alms  and  orisons; 
At  one  with  him  who  toils  and  him  who  runs, 
And  him  who  yearns  for  union  yet  to  be. 

Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


APRIL    lo. 


One  star  differ eth  from  another  star  in  glory. 

I  Cor.  XV.  41. 

EVERY  man  who  is  a  Christian  must  live  a 
Christian  life  that  is  peculiarly  his  own. 
Every  candle  of  the  Lord  must  utter  its  pecul- 
iar light;  only  the  true  individuality  of  faith 
is  marked  by  these  characteristics  which  res- 
cue it  from  bigotry:  first,  that  it  does  not  add 
something  to  the  universal  light,  but  only 
brings  out  most  strongly  some  aspect  of  it 
which  is  specially  its  own;  second,  that  it 
always  cares  more  about  the  essential  light 
than  about  the  peculiar  way  in  which  it  utters 
it;  and  third,  that  it  easily  blends  with  other 
special  utterances  of  the  universal  light,  in 
cordial  sympathy  and  recognition  of  the  value 
which  it  finds  in  them.  Let  these  character- 
istics be  in  every  man's  religion,  and  then  the 
individuality  of  faith  is  an  inestimable  gain. 
Then  the  different  candles  of  the  Lord  burn  in 
long  rows  down  His  great  palace-halls  of  the 
world;  and  all  together,  each  complementing 
all  the  rest,  they  light  the  whole  vast  space 

with  Him. 

II.  14. 

"  Slender  the  streams  of  good 
That  flow  from  the  lives  of  men, 

But  united  they  swell  to  a  gracious  flood 
That  blesseth  again  and  again." 


APRIL    II.  loi 


A/id  the  inultitndes  that  went  befo?'e,  and  that 
followed^  cried,  sayi/ig,  Hosamia  to  the  Son  of 
David  J  Blessed  is  He  that  cometh  in  the  name  of 
the  Lord.  .  .  .  And  when  He  was  come  into  Jeru- 
salem^ all  the  city  was  moved,  saying,  Who  is  this  ? 

Matt.  ix.  lo. 

SO  Jesus  came  into  Jerusalem.  He  came  at 
once  as  an  Intruder  and  a  King.  There 
were  men  .  .  .  who  made  the  old  streets  ring 
with  shouts  of  welcome.  There  were  other 
men  who  .  .  .  with  muttered  curses  saw 
Him  go  by  in  His  triumph.  But  through  it 
all  Jesus  held  on  His  way,  claiming  the  town 
for  His  town  because  it  was  His  Father's. 

And  so  he  claims  our  hearts.  An  Intruder 
and  a  King  at  once  He  seems  to  those  hearts 
as  He  stands  there  on  the  threshold.  There 
is  something  in  every  one  of  them  that  says  to 
Him,  "Come  in,  come  in!"  There  is  some- 
thing, too,  in  every  one  of  them  that  rises  up 
at  His  coming  and  says,  "Begone,  begone! 
We  will  not  have  this  Man  to  rule  over  us." 
But  through  their  tumult,  their  struggle, 
Christ,  whether  He  be  King  or  Intruder, 
whether  He  be  welcomed  or  rejected,  goes  on 
His  way,  pressing  on  into  each  heart's  most 
secret  places,  claiming  always  that  He  and  He 
alone  is  the  heart's  King.  VII.  220. 

Lord,  we  would  fain  some  little  palm-branch  lay 

Upon  Thy  way  .   .   . 
If  but  the  foldings  of  Thy  garment's  hem 

Shall  shadow  them, 
These  worthless  leaves  which  we  have  brought  and  strewed 

Along  Thy  road 
Shall  be  raised  up  and  made  divinely  sweet, 

And  fit  to  lie  beneath  Thy  feet. 

Susan  Coolidge. 


I02  APRIL    12. 


He  goeth  before  you  into  Galilee. 

Matt,  xxviii.  7. 

THIS  is  Christ's  way.  Wherever  He  would 
have  His  disciples  go,  He  goes  first  Him- 
self, and  through  the  door  which  He  has 
opened  He  draws  them  by  His  love.  That  is 
the  whole  philosophy  of  Christian  culture. 
And  that  is  the  meaning  of  the  Incarnation. 
God  entered  into  human  life;  made  Himself 
one  with  it  as  He  only  could  have  done  with 
a  nature  that  was  originally  one  with  His  own. 
He  became  man  as  He  could  not  have  become 
brute  or  stone.  Then  in  that  human  nature 
He  outwent  humanity.  He  opened  yet  un- 
opened gates  of  human  possibility.  He 
showed  what  man  might  be,  how  great,  how 
god-like!  And  by  the  love  and  oneness  He  has 
always  been  claiming  man  for  the  greatness 
whose  possibility  He  showed.  As  we  think 
of  the  Incarnation  deeply,  these  three  stages 
come  in  one  thought.  First,  the  God  in  Christ 
seems  very  near  to  us  as  we  think  of  His  love. 
Then  He  seems  very  far  above  us  as  we  think 
of  His  holiness,  and  then  again  He  seems  to 
bring  us  very  near  to  Himself  as  we  feel  His 
power.  He  is  one  with  us.  He  goes  beyond 
us,  and  He  comes  again  and  receives  us  unto 
Himself.  VI.  179. 

Ah,  the  dear  message  that  He  gave  her  then, 

Said  for  the  sake  of  all  bruised  hearts  of  men  ! 

"  Go,  tell  those  friends  who  have  believed  on  Me, 

I  go  before  them  into  Galilee  : 

"  Into  the  life  so  poor,  and  hard,  and  plain. 
That  for  a  while  they  must  take  up  again, 
My  presence  passes.      Where  their  feet  toil  slow. 
Mine,  shining-swift  with  love,  still  foremost  go." 
Adeline  D.  T.  Whitney. 


APRIT. 


103 


fV/io  IS  among  you  that  feareth  the  Lord,  .  .  . 
that  walketh  in  darkness.,  and  hath  no  light  "i  let 
him  trust  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  a?id  stay  upon 
his  God. — Is.  i.  10. 

"  \1  7HAT  shall  I  do  with  this  sorrow  that 
''  God  has  sent  me  ?  "  "  Take  it  up  and 
bear  it,  and  get  a  strength  and  blessing  out  of 
it."  "  Ah,  if  I  only  knew  what  blessing  there 
was  in  it,  if  I  saw  how  it  would  help  me,  then  I 
could  bear  it  like  a  plume  !  "  "  What  shall  I 
do  with  this  hard,  hateful  duty  which  Christ 
has  laid  right  in  my  way?"  "Do  it,  and 
grow  by  doing  it."  "Ah,  yes;  if  I  could  only 
see  that  it  would  make  me  grow!  "  In  both 
these  cases  do  you  not  see  that  what  you  are 
begging  for  is  not  more  faith,  although  you 
think  it  is,  but  sight  ?  You  want  to  see  for  your- 
self the  blessing  in  the  sorrow,  the  strength  in 
the  hard  and  hateful  task.  Faith  says  not, 
* '  I  see  that  it  is  good  for  me,  and  so  God  must 
have  sent  it,"  but  "  God  sent  it,  and  so  it 
must  be  good  for  me." 

V.  351. 

Hast  thou  forgotten  that  we  v/alk  by  faith  ? 
For  keenest  sight  but  multiplies  the  shows. 
Lift  up  thine  eyelids;  take  a  valiant  breath; 
Fearful,  dare  yet  the  terror  in  God's  name; 
Step  wider,  trust  the  Invisible. 

George  Macdonald. 


I04  APRIL    14. 


Father y  save  me  from  this  hour  :  But  for  this 
hour  came  I  into  the  world.  Father ^  glorify  Thy 
7ia77ie. — John  xii.  27,  28. 

NO  duty  of  doing  frightens  and  dismays  the 
human  soul  like  the  duty  of  mere  suffer- 
ing. I  know  nothing  that  will  so  cow  and 
crush  a  strong,  well  man,  with  the  red  blood 
riotous  in  his  full  veins,  as  a  certain  convic- 
tion coming  suddenly  upon  him  that  he  is  to 
be  a  poor,  miserable,  dependent  invalid  all 
the  rest  of  his  days  until  he  dies.  Nothing 
makes  a  man  cry  out  to  die  like  that.  It  is  the 
most  terrible  sight  one  ever  sees.  .  .  .  And 
then  it  is  the  most  beautiful  sight  one  ever 
sees.  As  the  man  lies  there  in  his  misery,  out 
of  the  darkness  comes  his  past  and  reads  itself 
to  him.  Each  bright  old  year  of  health  comes 
with  its  message  of  God's  unforgetting 
love.  .  .  .  He  slowly  sees  that  all  the  past 
of  active  duty  was  stocking  his  life  with  the 
graces  that  should  fit  him  for  these  slow  years 
of  suffering  duty.  This  bed  of  wretchedness 
was  the  result  to  which  every  path  of  educa- 
tion led.  Slowly  his  soul  accepts  the  lesson. 
"  Father,  save  me  from  this  hour.  Nay,  for 
this  purpose  came  I  unto  this  hour.  Father, 
glorify  Thy  name."  Then  the  hands  drop 
patiently  from  their  resistance.  The  meek 
lips  are  put  up  to  taste  the  bitter  cup.  The 
life  grows  happy  in  its  new  enlightenment  of 
pain. 

•'  '  Glory  to  God,  to  God  ! '  he  saith  ; 

'  Knowledge  by  suffering  entereth, 

-   And  life  is  perfected  by  death.' " 

VII.  228. 


APRIL    15.  T05 


/  am  the  bread  of  life. 

He  that  eateth  Me,  even  he  shall  live  by  Me. 

John  vi.  35,  57. 

TO  feed  on  Christ  is  to  get  His  strength  into 
us  to  be  our  strength.  You  feed  on  the 
cornfield  and  then  go  and  build  your  house, 
and  it  is  the  cornfield  in  your  strong  arm  that 
builds  the  house,  that  cuts  down  the  trees  and 
piles  the  stone  and  lifts  the  roof  into  its  place. 
You  feed  on  Christ  and  then  go  and  live  your 
life,  and  it  is  Christ  in  you  that  lives  your  life, 
that  helps  the  poor,  that  tells  the  truth,  that 
fights  the  battlg,  and  that  wins  the  crown. 

But  what  is  this  strength  of  Christ  that 
comes  to  us  ?  It  is  His  character, — His 
strength,  His  purity.  His  truth.  His  merciful- 
ness,— in  one  word,  His  holiness,  the  perfect- 
ness  of  His  moral  life.  That  is  the  inner 
strength.     That  is  the  strength  of  food. 

And  notice  how  this  last  alone  is  vital.  It 
alone  makes  life.  It  lives.  The  buttress  keeps 
the  dead  wall  standing,  but  the  sap  makes  the 
live  tree  still  more  alive  with  growth.  So  com- 
pulsion and  fear  keep  us  true  to  duty,  but  love 
makes  us  larger  and  fit  for  greater  duty  every 
day.  Every  vital  strength  must  be  the  strength 
which  incorporates  itself  with  the  very  being  of 
the  thing  that  it  supports.  Except  we  eat  we 
can  have  no  life  in  us.  II.  246,  242. 

Lord,  evennore  give  us  this  bread. — John  vi.  34. 

Lord,  leave  us  not  athirst,  unfed,   .   .   . 
Until,  these  mortal  needs  all  past, 
\Ve  sit  at  Thy  full  feast  at  last. 
The  bread  of  angels  broken  by  Thee, 
The  wine  of  joy  poured  constantly. 

Susan  Coolidge. 


To6  APRIL 


Pilate  saith  unto  them^  Behold  the  man. 

John  xix.  5. 

THINK  of  Christ's  life  and  death,  not  with 
reference  to  the  mysterious  redemptive 
efficac}^  that  was  in  it,  but  as  the  great  human 
life,  the  representative  life  that  set  forth  the 
ideal  experience  and  culture  of  a  human  soul. 
And  surely  it  does  not  fail  us  here.  Whatever 
else  comes  to  a  life,  there  is  a  final  grace  and 
greatness  which  it  cannot  have  until  it  has 
been  touched  by  pain.  I  do  not  speak  it 
sentimentally.  I  do  not  mean  the  mere  pa- 
thetic romance  which  gives  ^  charm  to  the 
story  of  the  unfortunate.  I  mean  the  very 
stuff  and  qualities  of  our  manhood — those 
things  which  make  us  really  and  completely 
men.  .  .  .  Maturity  of  character  is  as  sure  a 
sign  of  some  healthy  experience  of  pain,  how- 
ever secret,  as  the  brilliancy  and  clearness  of 
a  bit  of  glass  is  of  the  fire  through  which  it 
has  passed. 

We  do  not  dishonor  the  humanity  of  Jesus 
when  we  thus  make  it  the  type  of  what  ours 
may  be.  He  wanted  and  He  loves  to  have  us 
use  it  so.  "  As  I  am,  so  are  ye  in  this  world," 
He  declared.  Only  remember  He  is  not  only 
pattern,  but  power.  We  must  be  like  Him, 
but  we  cannot  be,  save  as  He  makes  us.  We 
must  come  to  Him,  but  we  can  only  come  to 
Him  by  His  grace  and  help.  VII.  11,  12. 

Thou  art  our  Pattern  to  the  end  of  time, 
Oh  Crucified!  and  perfect  is  Thy  will: 

The  workers  follow  Thee  in  doing  good; 
The  helpless  think  of  Calvary,  and  are  still. 

Caroline  M.  Noel. 


APRIL    17.  107 


T^HE  broken  edges  everywhere!  The  lialf- 
^  finished  tasks  that  men  have  to  leave  and 
go  into  the  darkness!  The  young  careers  so 
full  of  promise  that  suddenly  stop!  The  great 
ideas  and  wishes,  growing  legitimately  out  of 
earthly  life,  yet  evidently  too  large  for  it,  find- 
ing no  satisfaction  here!  And  most  of  all  the 
unfinished  characters!  I  can  think  that  it  is 
no  great  thing  for  a  man  to  die  with  his  for- 
tune half  made,  or  his  barn  half  built;  but 
that  he  should  die  just  .as  his  character  is 
rounding  into  shape,  and  from  a  crude  study 
becoming  a  picture  of  beauty  and  an  engine  of 
power,  this  is  what  most  bewilders  us.  This 
is  what  most  of  all,  I  think,  has  made  men 
guess  that  this  earthly  life  we  see  is  a  part  and 
not  a  whole,  and  set  their  eyes  pathetically 
searching  for  that  other  world  they  thought 
must  be  beyond  the  waters. 

XI.  15. 

Still  must  we  hope  what  we  believe, 
And  what  is  given  us  receive; 
Must  still  believe,  for  still  we  hope 
That  in  a  world  of  larger  scope 
What  here  is  faithfully  begun 
Will  be  completed,  not  undone. 

Arthur  Hugh  Clough. 


To8  APRIL    i8. 


If  after  the  manner  of  men  I  have  fought  with 
beasts  at  Ephesus,  what  advajitageth  it  me,  if  the 
dead  rise  7iot? — i  Cor.  xv.  32. 

YOU  can  test  the  work  that  you  are  en- 
gaged in  in  the  world  by  seeing  whether 
it  needs,  whether  it  is  restless  and  cramped 
without  the  truth  of,  an  immortality.  If  it  is 
not,  if  you  can  do  your  little  fight  just  as  well 
without  any  hope  of  an  eternity,  be  sure  the 
fight  that  you  are  at  is  a  poor  one,  is  not 
worthy  of  your  highest  powers — is  too  small  a 
fight  for  a  man,  a  child  of  God,  to  spend  his 
life  in  fighting. 

The  world's  poor  heart  knows  very  well 
what  it  wants.  For  years  and  years  it  longed 
to  see  one  man  rise  from  the  dead.  If  it  could 
only  have  that!  It  could  let  many  other  ques- 
tions go  unanswered,  but,  oh,  for  some 'light 
on  that  darkness — oh,  for  some  sound  out  of 
that  silence!  If  it  could  have  that,  then  its 
bonds  would  be  broken,  its  whole  pale  life 
flooded  with  color,  its  best  truths  verified  com- 
pletely, and  a  hope  lighted  upon  every  grave. 
No  longer  should  spiritual  philosophy  labor 
under  the  burden  of  materialism;  no  longer 
should  the  dying  die  in  terrible  doubt,  and  the 
mourners  go  hopelessly  about  the  streets.  My 
friends,  the  world's  prayer  is  answered.  A 
true  man  has  risen  from  the  grave.  Life  and 
immortality  are  brought  to  light. 

XII.  29. 

Most  human  and  yet  most  divine. 
The  flower  of  man  and  God! 

Whittikr. 


APRIL    19.  109 


TTOW  this  "power  of  the  resurrection" 
*  ^  transfigures  and  changes  not  merely  all 
internal,  but  all  external  things!  .  .  .  The 
world  itself,  even  material  nature — trees  and 
fields  and  skies,  noontimes  and  mornings,  sun- 
sets and  midnights — cannot  be  the  same  when 
they  are  found  to  be  the  education-place  of  a 
being  with  a  destiny  such  as  the  resurrection 
of  Jesus  Christ  makes  known  for  man.  They 
must  bring  moral  meanings  to  that  soul  which 
this  new  truth  of  immortality  exalts  to  be  the 
monarch  of  the  world.  You  say  that  this  is 
poetry.  There  is  no  poetry  on  the  earth  like 
the  Christian's  faith,  that  most  noble  of  all 
creative  powers,  "the  substance  of  things 
hoped  for,  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen." 
And  so  it  is  the  commonest  Christian  conscious- 
ness, belonging  to  all  Christian  minds  in  their 
several  degrees,  that  to  them,  with  their  new 
life,  the  whole  world  of  nature  became  new 
too,  had  new  words  to  speak  to  them  of  God 
and  of  eternity,  and  that  all  through  their 
lives  there  are  times  when  the  enlightened  uni- 
verse becomes  vocal,  and  its  visible  realities 
impart  to  them 

"  Authentic  tidinjrs  of  invisible  things, 
Of  ebb  and  flow,  and  ever-during  power, 
And  central  peace  subsisting  at  the  heart 
Of  endless  agitation." 

VII.  283. 


APRIL    20. 


Handle  me  and  see,  for  a  spirit  hath  not  flesh 
and  bones  as  ye  see  me  have. — Luke  xxiv.  39. 

IN  these  words  Christ  after  His  resurrection 
appeals  to  His  disciples  to  bear  witness 
that  He  is  a  true  living  man,  and  not  a  dis- 
embodied spirit.  He  bids  them  use  their 
human  senses  to  discover  that  He  is  truly- 
human  like  themselves.  The  words  therefore 
may  represent  to  us  the  perpetual  appeal  which 
Christ  makes  to  our  human  consciousness  and 
to  the  perceptions  of  mankind  to  recognize 
His  true  humanity.  As  He  then  offered  His 
human  body  for  the  inspection  of  His  disci- 
ples, and  bade  them  own  that  it  was  truly  a 
man's  body,  so  He  is  always  offering  His 
whole  human  nature  and  calling  on  men  to 
witness  that  He  is  truly  human  in  thought  and 
feeling  and  character,  the  pattern  and  fulfil- 
ment of  humanity. 

There  are  two  knowledges  of  Christ,  one 
lower  and  one  higher.  The  first  knowledge 
brings  us  to  obedience.  The  second  knowl- 
edge is  the  power  of  spiritual  growth. 

Into  that  higher  knowledge  may  we  all  ad- 
vance; making  Christ  ours  first,  that  in  the 
end  He  may  make  us  His.  With  reverent 
hands  may  we  handle  Him  and  see  that  He  is 
truly  manly,  that  He  really  wears  our  human- 
ity, that  so  we  may  through  His  humanity 
come  to  the  Father  God  whom  He  reveals. 

II.  253,  269. 


APRIL    21.  Ill 


In  your  patience  possess  ye  your  souls.  .  .  .  Your 
redemption  draweth  nigh. — Luke  xxi.  19,  28. 

THE  world  is  growing  better — I  know  it.  A 
great  unceasing  movement  toward  truth 
and  goodness  is  carrying  slowly  forward  ever 
the  character  of  this  great,  mighty,  mysterious 
humanity.  How  slow  it  is,  but  oh,  how  real 
it  is,  the  study  of  the  ages  tells.  And  yet 
behold  how  the  good  causes  fail.  Behold  how 
selfishness  comes  in  to  paralyze  each  great 
endeavor  for  the  good  of  man.  Alas  for  him 
who  only  sees  this  surface  fact;  who  does  not 
feel  beneath  it  all  the  heave  and  movement  of 
the  whole  race  forward  toward  goodness, 
toward  God!  To  him  who  hears  at  once  the 
tumult  of  moral  failures  all  around  him  and 
the  steady  progress  of  the  great  moral  success 
beneath  him — to  him  the  world  becomes 
solemn  and  beautiful,  pathetic  and  full  of 
hope.  For  him  despairing  i)essimism  and  silly 
optimism  both  become  impossible.  A  divine 
optimism,  which,  while  it  dares  not  say, 
"  Whatever  is  is  best,"  devoutly  says,  "The 
best  is  strongest  and  shall  ultimately  conquer 
and  use  even  the  worst,"  becomes  the  habit 
of  his  life.  Such  was  the  optimism  of  Jesus. 
Such  is  the  optimism  of  His  disciples  if  they 
catch  His  spirit.  VII.  206. 

Then  life  is — to  wake,  not  sleep; 

Rise,  and  not  rest;  but  press 
From  earth's  level,  where  blindly  creep 

Things  perfected  more  or  less. 
To  the  heaven's  height,  far  and  steep. 

BRUWNIiNG. 


112  APRIL     22. 


THERE  is  a  religion  wliich  finds  the  world 
unsatisfying,  and  so  turns  longingly, 
wistfully,  pathetically,  wearily  to  God.  There 
is  another  religion  which  finds  the  world  won- 
drously  beautiful  and  good,  yet  always  sug- 
gesting something  more  beautiful  and  better 
than  itself,  and  this  religion  too  turns  to  God, 
but  glowingly,  springingly,  hopefully.  The 
first  religion  starts  from  a  sense  of  sin  and 
comes  to  God  for  forgiveness.  The  second 
religion  starts  in  a  thankful  joy,  a  sense  of 
promise,  and  comes  to  God  for  fulfilment. 
The  first  starts  with  disgust  at  self,  and  so 
comes  to  love  for  God.  The  second  starts  in 
admiration  of  God,  and  so  comes  to  forgetful- 
ness  of  self. 


IV.  136. 


Happy  !     Yes;    and  wherefore 

Should  I  not  be  so  ?      ^ 
Love  Divine  o'erhangeth 

All  the  way  I  go. 

Darkest  shadow  showeth 

Smiling  sun  behind; 
Where  the  sickle  goeth, 

There  the  reapers  bind. 

Happy  !     Yes;    and  wherefore 

Should  I  not  be  so. 
Since  by  ways  appointed 

Unto  heaven  I  go  ? 

J.  L.  M.  W. 


APRIL    23.  113 


T^HERE  are  many  great  and  exultant  mo- 
*  ments  in  our  lives;  moments  in  which 
some  new,  heretofore  unfelt  motive  takes  us 
into  its  power,  when  some  new  work  for  us 
and  some  new  power  in  us  starts  forth  and 
makes  life  seem  fresh  and  green,  like  a  spring 
morning  that  forgets  all  the  stains  and  storms 
that  have  gone  before  it.  But  among  all  such 
moments  there  is  none  that  can  compare  with 
that  in  which  duty  passes  into  love — when 
morality,  reaching  itself  out  into  eternity,  as- 
serts its  sameness  of  nature  with  the  service 
that  the  glorified  nature  is  to  render  to  God  in 
the  heavenly  city,  so  that  the  obligation  of 
honesty  in  our  bargains  is  seen  to  rest  on  the 
same  sanctions  and  to  be  lustrous  with  the 
same  beauty  now  that  will  belong  to  the  sing- 
ing of  the  everlasting  songs  and  the  casting  of 
the  crowns  before  the  Saviour's  feet — the 
moment  when  our  life  thus  knows  Christ  and 
the  power  of  His  resurrection. 

VII.  285. 

Something  that  leaps  life's  narrow  bars, 

To   claim   its   birthright   with   the   hosts   of 
heaven; 

A  seed  of  sunshine  that  doth  leaven 
Our  earthly  dulness  with  the  beams  of  stars, 

And  glorify  our  clay 

With  light  from  fountains  elder  than  the  Day. 

James  Russell  Lowell. 


114  APRIL    24. 


Father,  I  will  that  they  also,  whom  Thou  hast 
given  me,  be  with  me  where  I  am  j  that  they  may 
behold  7ny  glory. — John  xvii.  24. 

BEFORE  the  words  can  soar  into  the  high, 
pure  meaning  which  belongs  to  them, 
we  must  remember  what  Christ's  glory  is  which 
He  wants  us  to  see.  Its  essence,  the  heart 
and  soul  of  it,  must  be  His  goodness.  .  .  . 
And  here  the  truth  comes  in,  that  in  moral 
things  only  the  like  can  see  its  like;  only  the 
good  can  really  discern,  appreciate,  and  under- 
stand goodness.  That  needs  no  proof.  We 
see  it  every  day.  Men  live  alongside  of  the 
best  saints  the  world  possesses,  do  business 
with  them,  pass  their  whole  lives  with  them, 
and  never  know  that  they  are  good.  If  we 
have  ever  made  any  advance  in  purity  and 
unselfishness,  has  not  the  best  of  all  its  satis- 
faction been  in  this,  that  it  has  let  us  see  some- 
thing new  of  the  self-sacrifice  and  purity  in 
other  men  which  have  been  hidden  from  us? 
The  higher  we  climb,  the  more  the  peaks  open 
around  us.  Now  apply  all  this  to  the  Sav- 
iour's prayer  that  we  may  see  His  glory. 
His  glory  is  His  goodness.  Only  by  growth 
in  goodness  can  His  goodness  open  itself  to 
us.  What  is  He  praying  for  then  ?  Is  it  not 
that  we  might  be  like  Him?  So  only  can  we 
see  Him.  It  is  His  glory  that  He  wants  us 
to  see,  but,  back  of  that.  He  wants  us  to  be 
such  men  and  women  that  we  can  see  His 
glory.  I.  30S,  309. 

Walk  with  Him  now  ;  so  shall  thy  way  be  bright, 
And  all  thy  soul  be  filled  with  His  most  glorious  light. 

HOKATIUS    BONAR. 


APRIL    25.  115 


That  we  henceforth  be  no  more  children^  tossed 
to  and  fro,  but  .  .  .  may  groiv  up  into  Him  in  c.ll 
things. — Ephes.  iv.   14,  15. 

THE  true  faith  which  a  man  has  kept  up  to 
the  end  of  his  Hfe  must  be  one  that  has 
opened  with  his  growth  and  constantly  won 
new  reahty  and  color  from  his  changing  ex- 
perience. ...  It  is  the  field  that  once  held 
the  seed,  now  waving  and  rustling  under  the 
autumn  wind  with  the  harvest  that  it  holds, 
yet  all  the  time  it  has  kept  the  corn.  The  joy 
of  his  life  has  richened  his  belief.  His  sorrow 
has  deepened  it.  His  doubts  have  sobered 
it.  His  enthusiasms  have  fired  it.  His  labor 
has  purified  it.  His  doctrines  are  like  the 
house  that  he  has  lived  in,  rich  with  associa- 
tions which  make  it  certain  that  he  will  never 
move  out  of  it.  His  doctrines  have  been  illus- 
trated and  strengthened  and  endeared  by  the 
good  help  they  have  given  to  his  life.  And 
no  doctrine  that  has  not  done  this  can  be 
really  held  up  to  the  end  with  any  such  vital 
grasp  as  will  enable  us  to  carry  it  with  us 
through  the  river  and  enter  with  it  into  the  new 
life  beyond. 

I.  62. 

O  Almighty  God,  who  hast  instructed  Thy  holy  Church 
with  the  heavenly  doctrine  of  Thy  Evangelist  Saint  Mark  ; 
Give  us  grace  that,  being  not  like  children  carried  away 
with  every  blast  of  strange  doctrine,  we  may  be  established 
in  the  truth  of  Thy  holy  Gospel  ;  through  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord.     Amen. 

Book  of  Common  Prayer. 


ii6  APRIL    26. 


DESPERATION  and  bitterness  come  with 
the  sight  of  pain  without  the  sight  of  the 
higher  consequences  and  results  of  pain.  .  .  . 
**  Curse  God  and  die,"  seems  sometimes  to  be 
the  only  outcome  of  it  all.  .  .  .  It  /i  the  only 
outcome  of  it  all,  if  the  pain  you  see  or  feel  is 
all.  But  if  the  whole  of  a  man's  life  from  its 
beginning  to  its  endless  end,  from  its  surface 
to  its  inmost  heart,  is  capable  of  being  taken 
into  account,  then  the  desperate  outcome  is 
not  the  only  one.  There  is  a  blessing  and  a 
thankfulness  which  may  overcome  and  drown 
the  curse.  .  .  .  Suppose  that,  looking  at 
pain,  and  with  the  curse  just  growing  into 
shape  upon  your  lips,  a  great  hand  takes  you 
up  and  lifts  you.  And  as  you  rise  your  vision 
widens.  And  slowly  education  grows  into 
your  view,  surrounding  pain,  and  drawing  out 
its  sense  of  cruelty,  and  crowding  in  upon  it  its 
own  sense  of  love  and  purpose.  Then,  in  the 
larger  vision,  must  not  the  curse  perish  ?  And 
if  the  lips  are  not  strong  enough  to  open  into 
thankfulness,  at  least  the  eyes,  still  full  of 
pity,  may  wait  in  peace, 

VI.  221. 

The  Way  of  the  Just  is  made  strait,  and 
the  journey  of  the  Saints  is  prepared. 

After  what  ma7iner  ? 

By  sorrow  and  labor;  for  this  is  the  way  to 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

Is  there  no  other  way  to  the  Life  JSternal  ? 

None.  The  only  straight  way  is  that  of  the 
Cross. 

//  is  so.     Christ  hath  taught  this  in  His  Word, 

Thomas  A  Kempis. 


APRIL    27.  117 


We  live  by  admiration,  hope  and  love: 
And  even  as  these  are  well  and  wisely  fixed, 
In  dignity  of  being  we  ascend. 

Wordsworth. 

WHAT  does  it  mean  when  men  as  they 
grow  older  become  narrow,  sordid,  and 
machine-like,  when  a  vulgar  self-content 
comes  over  them,  and  all  the  limitations  of  a 
finished  life  that  hopes  for  and  expects  no 
more  than  what  it  is  makes  the  sad  picture 
which  we  see  in  hosts  of  men's  middle  life  ? 
Is  it  not  certainly  that  those  men  have 
ceased  to  admire  and  trust  ?  .  .  .  The  blight 
that  falls  upon  their  natures  is  the  token  of 
what  a  lofty  and  life-giving  faculty  it  is  which 
they  have  put  out  of  use.  It  was  this  faculty 
which  made  them  at  every  moment  greater 
than  themselves,  which  kept  them  in  com- 
munion with  the  riches  of  a  higher  life,  which 
preserved  all  the  enthusiasm  of  active  energy, 
and  yet  preserved  humility  which  held  all  the 
other  faculties  to  do  their  best  work.  This  is 
the  faculty  whose  disuse  makes  the  mature 
life  of  so  many  men  barren  and  dreary,  and 
whose  regeneration,  when  the  man  is  lifted  up 
into  the  new  admiration  and  the  new  trust,  the 
admiration  for  and  trust  in  God,  makes  a  large 
part  of  the  glory  of  the  full-grown  life  of 
faith.  VI.  95,  96. 


APRIL    28. 


EVERY  now  and  then  there  are  flashes  of 
light  upon  the  Gospel  page  which  let 
us  see  what  a  bright,  sunny,  and  sympathetic 
life  the  Saviour  lived, — how  perfectly  free  from 
harshness  and  asceticism  was  that  character 
which,  at  the  same  time,  carries  a  sweet  and 
gentle  seriousness  and  a  robust  earnestness 
with  it  wherever  it  went.  "  The  Son  of  man 
came  eating  and  drinking,  and  they  say.  Be- 
hold, a  man  gluttonous  and  a  wine-bibber,  a 
friend  of  publicans  and  sinners," — so  Jesus 
himself  described  one  day  the  current  impres- 
sion that  His  life  made  on  the  people  of  Jerusa- 
lem. The  words  are  like  an  instantaneous  pho- 
tograph of  that  far  distant  time.  .  .  .  In  those 
words  we  can  see  friends  and  enemies  alike 
busied  with  the  strange  life  of  Jesus,  and  only 
gradually  finding  out  that  it  was  they  who 
were  strange,  and  not  He, — gradually  coming 
first  to  feel  and  then  to  understand  that  this  life 
of  His,  so  bright  and  yet  so  serious,  so  individ- 
ual and  yet  so  social,  had  reached  completely 
what  their  lives  were  only  crudely  struggling 
after.  VIII.  86. 

We  would  see  Jesus!   not  alone  in  sorrow. 
But    we   would    have   Him   with   us    in   our 
mirth; 
He  at  whose  right  hand  there  are  joys  for  ever. 
Doth  not  disdain  to  bless  the  joys  of  earth. 
Anna  E.  Hamilton. 

Let  us  never  be  afraid  of  innocent  joy.  God  is  good, 
and  what  He  does  is  well  done.  We  must  dare  to  be 
happy  .  .  .  regarding  ourselves  always  as  the  depositaries, 
and  not  as  the  authors  of  our  joy.  Amiel. 


APRIL    29.  119 


He  giveth  power  to  the  faint,  and  to   them  that 
have  no  might  He  increaseth  strength. — Is.  xl.  29. 

DO  you  know  what  it  is  to  be  failing  every 
day,  and  yet  to  be  sure — humbly  but 
deeply  sure — that  your  life  is,  as  a  whole,  in 
its  great  movement  and  meaning,  not  failing, 
but  succeeding  ?  You  want  to  do  that  best 
work  that  a  man  can  do — to  make  life  brighter 
and  nobler  for  your  fellow-men.  Not  a  day 
passes  in  which  you  do  not  somehow  try  to 
do  that  blessed  work;  but  every  time  you  turn 
away  after  one  of  those  attempts  to  give  sym- 
pathy or  inspiration  to  your  brethren,  how  your 
heart  sinks,  so  cold  and  so  ignoble  are  the 
words  which  you  meant  to  be  so  generous  and 
warm  !  A.nd  yet  all  the  while  you  know  that 
the  whole  life  does  not  fail.  Still  there  is  the 
purpose  !  It  does  not  die.  It  is  not  given 
up.  It  presses  forward,  wounded  and  bleed- 
ing, but  more  and  more  determined  every  day. 
Every  day  it  grows  clearer  and  clearer  to  you 
that  without  that  wish  and  hope  and  resolu- 
tion life  would  not  be  worth  living. 

VII.  40. 

That  Thy  full  glory  may  abound,  increase, 
And  so  Thy  glory  shall  be  formed  in  me, 
I  pray:   the  answer  is  not  rest  or  peace. 
But  charges,  wants,  anxieties;   .   ,    . 
But  all  my  life  is  blossoming  inwardly. 
And  every  breath  is  like  a  litany. 
While  tl^rough  each  labor,  like  a  thread  of  gold, 
Is  woven  the  sweet  consciousness  of  Thee. 

Susan  Coolujge. 


I20  APRIL   30. 


Some  falls  are  means  the  happier  to  rise. 

Shakespeare. 

THERE  is  a  verse  of  one  of  the  subtlest  and 
truest  of  the  English  poets  of  our  time 
which  expresses  so  perfectly  this  idea  of  the 
relation  between  final  success  and  the  failures 
which  precede  it  that  I  quote  it  to  you:   .   .   . 

"  For  while  the  tired  waves,  vainly  breaking, 
Seem  here  no  painful  inch  to  gain. 
Far  back,  through  creeks  and  inlets  making, 
Comes  silent,  flooding  in,  the  main," 

The  noisy  waves  are  failures,  but  the  great 
silent  tide  is  a  success.  The  waves  are  borne 
upon  the  bosom  of  the  tide;  they  share  its 
motion;  nay,  the  failure  of  each  of  them  in 
some  degree  is  a  reaction  of  the  tide's  motion 
as  it  is  cast  back  from  the  beach.  But  all  the 
time  the  tide  is  succeeding  while  the  waves  are 
failing.  The  failures  are  carried  on  the  bosom 
of  a  success  which  is  present  underneath  them 
all  the  time.  A  life  might  be  succeeding  in 
the  struggle  after  goodness  even  while  every 
effort  of  the  man  who  lived  that  life  to  be  good 
fell  so  far  short  of  what  he  wanted  it  to  be  that 
he  could  call  it  nothing  but  a  failure.  The 
purpose,  the  consecration,  of  the  life  to  God 
and  goodness  is  its  tide.  The  special  strug- 
gles to  do  good  things  are  the  waves.  The 
deep,  persistent,  and  unchanging  hate  of  the 
peculiar  sin,  which  is  determined  never  to  be 
reconciled  to  it  and  to  fight  against  it  till  it 
dies — that  is  the  soul's  success,  which  does  not 
falter  or  stop,  and  which  carries  along  upon  it 
all  the  partial  failures  of  which  the  life  is  full. 

VII,  197,  198,  201. 


MAY    I.  121 


Philip  saith  unto  him,  Come  and  see. 

John  i.  46. 

THIS  was  the  admirable  wisdom  of  Philip. 
What  had  converted  him  was  the  personal 
sight  of  Jesus.  He  has  no  other  religion  but 
that.  .  .  .  Jesus  was  His  own  evidence.  To 
get  his  friend  face  to  face  with  Jesus — this  was 
his  object.   .   .   . 

Christianity  offers  to  the  world  her  historic 
Christ.  .  .  .  Back  in  the  centuries,  yet  set  so 
clearly  in  the  light  of  authentic  history  that 
all  attempts  to  melt  His  life  into  a  cloudy  myth 
have  always  failed,  there  stands  this  figure. 
She  claims  that  this  Being  to  whom  she  points 
is  the  power  and  wisdom  of  God  present  upon 
the  earth.  You  hesitate  and  doubt.  Then 
"  Come  and  see,"  she  says.  Put  yourself  in 
the  presence  of  this  Being.  .  .  .  Ennoble  hu- 
manity as  completely  as  you  will,  and  it  will 
not  explain  this  phenomenal  character  and 
life.  .  .  ,  She  says  it  is  God  manifest  in  the 
flesh.  Come,  and  find  another  explanation, 
if  you  can.  Come,  and  if  there  is  no  other  to 
be  found,  take  this  and  own  the  divine 
Christ.  VI.  139,  144. 

Behold  Him  now  where  He  comes  ! 

Not  the  Christ  of  our  subtile  creeds. 
But  the  Lord  of  our  hearts,  our  homes. 

Of  our  hopes,  our  prayers,  our  needs; 
The  Brother  of  want  and  blame. 

The  Lover  of  women  and  men, — 
With  a  love  that  puts  to  shame 

All  passions  of  mortal  ken. 

Richard  Watson  Gilder. 


122  MAY      2. 


As  the  Father  knozveth  me^  even  so  know  I  the 
Father. — John  x.  15. 

THE  words  are  full  of  that  idea  of  mutual- 
ness  which  gives  so  much  of  warmth  and 
richness  to  all  life.  Any  relation  which  is  all 
one-sided  is  unsatisfactory  and  dull.  It  is  not 
vividly  interesting.  We  love  to  think  of  any 
two  objects,  any  two  beings  which  have  to  do 
with  one  another  as  ministering  each  to  each, 
each  sending  to  the  other  something  in  answer 
to  that  which  it  receives.  That  fills  the  rela- 
tionship with  motion,  and  with  motion  come 
light  and  heat.  The  sun  and  the  earth,  the 
insect  and  the  plant,  the  nation  and  the  citi- 
zen, the  teacher  and  the  pupil,  the  parent  and 
the  child,  the  air  which,  filled  with  light,  gives 
to  the  light  its  substance  and  its  swiftness, — in 
every  relationship  there  is  this  principle  of  re- 
ciprocity. Nothing  alone  is  thoroughly  alive; 
all  complete  life  subsists  in  the  reaction  of  mu- 
tuality. To  give  is  never  perfect  life;  it  needs 
the  complement,  the  fulfilment  of  taking.  To 
take  is  never  perfect  life;  it  needs  the  comple- 
ment, the  fulfilment  of  giving. 

IV.  283. 


O  Jesus,   who    lovest  us  all,   stoop  low  from 
Thy  glory  above: 

Where  sin  hath  abounded  make  grace  to  abound 
and  to  superabound. 

Till  we  gaze  on  Thee  face  unto  Face,  and  re- 
spond to  Thee  love  unto  Love. 

Christina  G.  Rossetti, 


MAY    3.  123 


Shall  we  serve  Heaven 

With  less  respect  than  we  do  minister 

To  our  gross  selves  ? 

Shakespeare. 

YOUR  Christian  duties,  the  prayers  you  pray, 
the  self-denials  that  you  practise,  the 
charities  you  give, — what  is  the  matter  with 
them?  .  .  .  You  serve  yourself,  and  how  clear 
you  are  to  yourself,  and  so,  what  life  there  is  in 
every  act  of  your  own  service;  but  you  serve 
Christ  and  how  dim  He  has  grown  !  and  so, 
how  listlessly  the  hands  move  at  His  labor  ! 
Now  if  the  Holy  Spirit  can  indeed  bring  Him 
clearly  to  you,  is  not  the  Holy  Spirit  what  you 
need  ?  And  this  is  just  exactly  what  He  does. 
I  find  a  Christian  who  has  really  "  received  the 
Holy  Ghost,"  and  what  is  it  that  strikes  and 
delights  me  in  him  ?  It  is  the  intense  and  in- 
timate reality  of  Christ.  .  .  .  His  whole  life 
is  light  and  elastic  with  this  buoyant  desire  of 
doing  everything  for  Jesus,  just  as  Jesus  would 
wish  it  done.  So  simple,  but  so  powerful!  So 
childlike,  but  so  heroic!  Duty  has  been  trans- 
figured. The  weariness,  the  drudgery,  the 
whole  task-nature,  has  been  taken  away.  Love 
has  poured  like  a  new  life-blood  along  the  dry 
veins,  and  the  soul  that  used  to  toil  and  groan 
and  struggle  goes  now  singing  along  its  way, 
' '  The  life  that  I  now  live  i?i  the  flesh,  I  live  by 
the  faith  of  the  Son  of  God  who  loved  me  and 
gave  Himself  for  vie.'' 

II.  228. 


124  MAY    4. 


CHRIST  saw  all  life  in  God.  That  means 
that  He  saw  life  in  its  completeness.  No 
being  ever  saw  the  evil  and  misery  as  He  be- 
held it.  He  saw  sin  with  all  the  intensity  of 
holiness.  But  nobody  ever  has  dared  call 
Jesus  Christ  a  pessimist.  He  saw  the  end  from 
the  beginning.  He  saw  the  depth  from  the 
surface.  He  saw  the  light  from  the  darkness. 
He  saw  the  whole  from  the  parts.  Therefore 
He  could  not  despair.  There  was  no  curse  of 
life  upon  His  lips,  but  infinite  pity  !  A  pity 
that  has  folded  itself  around  the  world's  torn 
and  bleeding  heart  ever  since — but  no  curse  ! 
And  who  are  we,  with  our  little  feeble  rage 
and  petulance,  flinging  our  testy  curses  where 
the  Lord's  blessing  descended  like  the  love  of 
God? 

VI.  214. 


There  is  one  Mind,  one  omnipresent  Mind 
Omnific.      His  most  holy  name  is  Love. 
Truth  of  subliming  import  ! — with  the  which 
Who  feeds  and  saturates  his  constant  soul, 
He  from  His  small  particular  orbit  flies 
With  blest  outstarting.     From  himself  he  flies. 
Stands  in  the  sun,  and  with  no  partial  gaze 
Views  all  creation,  and  He  loves  it  all, 
And  blesses  it,  and  calls  it  very  good  ! 

S.  T.  Coleridge. 


MAY   5.  125 

/  came  ?iot  to  send  peace,  but  a  sword. 

Matt.  x.  34. 

WE  must  think  of  Jesus  as  a  soul  undergo- 
ing experiences,  living  a  life  all  through 
those  years,  or  else  the  Gospels  are  a  very- 
dead  and  barren  book.  And  if  we  have  known 
what  it  is  to  look  forward  and  see,  with  a  ter- 
ror which  yet  is  glorified  by  hope,  that  the 
great  purpose  on  which  our  heart  is  set  is  to 
be  won  only  by  first  casting  it,  with  seeming 
recklessness,  away, —  .  .  .  then  we  can  under- 
stand how  the  Rebuilder  of  human  life  about 
the  fatherhood  of  God  dwelt  with  pathetic  cer- 
tainty upon  the  destruction  that  must  come 
before  that  construction  could  ^begin.  The 
more  intensely  He  knew  the  preciousness  of 
the  end,  the  more  necessary  and  the  more  ter- 
rible became  the  seeming  sacrifice  of  that  end 
before  He  must  go  to  reach  it.  The  more  He 
gloried,  with  His  heart  full  of  the  memories 
of  heaven,  in  the  prospect  of  the  re-estab- 
lished family  of  God  where  each  child  should 
find  his  own  distinctive  childhood  in  the  com- 
mon filial  life  of  all,  so  much  the  more  He 
saw  with  sadness,  but  with  certainty,  that  the 
merely  human  groupings  of  men,  in  which 
each  man  lost  his  true  self  among  his  brethren, 
must  be  broken  up.  VIII.  102. 

Old  things  shall  pass  away  ; 

The  new  shall  come  in  abundance, 

The  holy  desires  shall  overflow, 

And  rise  up   on   every  side  where   the  cherishing  spirit 

blowet'i''  : 
There  shall  be  no  more  fear,  but  love  shall  fill  all  ; 
For  this  change  is  from  the  right  hand  of  God. 

Thomas  A  K  em  pis. 


126  MAY    6. 


THERE  are  those  who  seem  to  be  doomed 
to  most  earthly  toil;  just  to  be  conscien- 
tious, and  upright,  and  thorough,  and  true.  It 
seems  as  if  that  were  everything  for  them. 
There  are  other  men  whose  souls  leap  to  tri- 
umphant thoughts,  and  whose  eyes  are  open 
to  ecstatic  visions.  .  .  .  These  two  sorts  of 
men  belong  together,  make  one  world,  are 
serving  the  purposes  of  one  God,  and  making 
ready  one  celestial  kingdom,  and  deserve 
each  the  other's  whole-souled  respect.  It  is  not 
that  the  lesser  man  is  making  his  life  success- 
ful by  making  possible  a  higher  life  which 
some  other  man  may  live,  though  that  is 
much.  It  is  that  in  this  universe,  where  natu- 
ral and  spiritual  succeed  and  minister  to  one 
another,  he  who  at  any  spot  is  doing  good 
work  of  any  kind  is  serving  the  Universal 
Master  and  contributing  to  the  universal  suc- 
cess. 

VI.  257. 

Morning,  evening,  noon,  and  night, 
"  Praise  God  !  "   sang  Theodite. 
Then  to  his  poor  trade  he  turned, 
Whereby  the  daily  bread  was  earned. 

But  ever  at  each  period, 

He  stopped  and  sang,  "  Praise  God  !  " 

Said  Blaise,  the  listening  monk,  "Well  done; 
I  doubt  not  thou  art  heard,  my  son. 
As  well  as  if  thy  voice  to-day 
Were  praising  God  the  Pope's  great  way." 

Browning. 


MAY    7.  127 

There  is  one  glory  of  the  moon,  and  another  glory 
of  the  sini,  and  another  glory  of  the  stars. 

I  Cor.  XV.  41. 

SAINT  PAUL  builds  his  argument  for  im- 
mortality upon  the  richness  and  the  splen- 
dor of  this  mortal  life.  Often  enough  have 
men  made  heaven  a  compensation  for  the  woes 
of  earth.  .  .  .  Paul  makes  heaven  not  a  com- 
pensation, but  a  development.  Because  this 
world  is  so  glorious,  therefore  the  glory  of 
heaven  must  be  surpassing  and  unspeakable. 
How  much  nobler  is  Paul's  way  !  How  much 
fuller  of  inspiration  and  of  genuine  faith!  .  .  . 
For  he  who  finds  in  the  manifold  glories  of 
this  mortal  life  a  symbol  and  witness  of  the 
glories  which  belong  to  immortality  will  al- 
ways be  led  to  live  this  life  as  intensely  and 
profoundly  as  he  can,  in  order  that  the  higher 
life  may  become  real  and  attractive  to  him. 
Men  have  thought  that  they  must  separate 
themselves  from  earth  in  order  that  they 
might  believe  in  heaven.  Paul's  doctrine 
says  emphatically,  "No!  "  He  says,  "The 
deeper  that  you  go  in  life,  the  more  life  must 
spread  itself  out  around  you  and  become 
eternity.  He  who  gets  to  the  centre  feels  the 
sphere." 

V.  59- 

Deep  love  lieth  under 
These  pictures  of  time; 

They  fade  in  the  light  of 
Their  meaning  sublime. 

Emerson. 


128  MAY    8. 


Your  joy  no  man  faketh  from  you. — John  xvi.  22. 

IN  these  words  Christ  declared  that  there  was 
a  joy  which  no  man  could  disturb.  There 
is  a  limit  to  our  power  over  one  another; 
there  is  a  chamber  of  our  inner  selves  where 
we  may  turn  the  key  and  no  one  can  come 
in.  .  .  .  The  very  fact  that  there  is  such  a 
limit  interests  us.  We  can  see  how  good  it  is 
for  a  man's  life  that,  while  there  should  be 
great  regions  of  his  happiness  which  are  in- 
volved with  what  other  men  are  and  do,  there 
should  be  also  other  regions  which  no  man  but 
himself  can  touch. 

As  I  watch  the  growing  life  of  the  disciples, 
I  see  them  coming  to  the  best  picture  of  what 
a  human  life  ought  to  be,  open  and  sensitive 
and  sympathetic,  and  yet  all  the  while  self- 
respectful  and  independent;  feeling  other  men 
and  yet  living  their  own  life;  as  responsive  as 
the  ocean's  surface  to  the  winds  of  the  living 
humanity  which  blew  across  them;  and  yet 
keeping,  like  the  ocean,  a  calm  and  hidden 
depth  which  no  storm  upon  the  surface  could 
disturb.  III.  290,  293. 

O  weary  ways  of  earth  and  men  ! 

O  self  more  weary  still  ! 
How  vainly  do  you  vex  the  heart 

That  none  but  God  can  fill  ! 

These  surface-troubles  come  and  go 

Like  rufflings  of  the  sea; 
The  deeper  depth  is  out  of  reach 

To  all,  my  God,  but  Thee. 

Faber. 


MAY   9.  129 

Your  heart  shall  rejoice,  and  your  Joy  no  man 
taketh  from  you. — John  xvi.  22. 

IT  was  a  special  joy,  the  inmost,  the  most 
secret  and  sacred  of  all  joys  which  their 
Master  promised.  .  .  .  And  Jesus  tells  His 
disciples  just  what  the  power  of  this  secret  joy 
is  to  be.  It  is  to  be  His  presence  with  them: 
"I  will  see  you  again,  and  your  heart  shall 
rejoice,  and  your  joy  no  man  taketh  from 
you."  Everything  is  based  upon  the  associa- 
tion which  they  are  to  have  with  Christ  their 
Master.  There  is  nothing  at  all  of  self-suffi- 
ciency in  what  is  promised.  It  is  not  that 
these  men  are  to  develop  some  interior 
strength,  or  to  drift  into  some  region  of  calm 
indifference  where  the  influences  of  their  fel- 
low-men shall  not  touch  them  any  longer.  It 
is  that  they  are  to  come  to  a  new  life  with 
Him.  The  new  joy  which  is  to  enter  into 
them,  which  they  are  to  enter  into,  is  to  be 
distinctly  a  joy  of  relationship  and  not  of  self- 
containment,  a  joy  which  is  to  escape  the  in- 
vasion of  the  men  who  disturb  all  other  joys 
by  being  held  in  the  hand  of  a  stronger  being, 
out  of  which  no  earthly  power  shall  be  able  to 
pluck  it. 

III.  292,  294. 

He  who  has  a  relish   for  Thee,  will  he  not 
find  sweetness  in  everything  ? 

And   he  that    has  no   relish   for  Thee,  what 
can  be  sweet  to  him  ? 

Thomas  A  Kempis. 


130  MAY    10. 


Could  not  this  ma?iy  which  opened  the  eyes  of  the 
blind,  have  caused  that  even  this  man  should  not 
have  died? — John  xi.  37. 

COULD  not  Christ  have  saved  Lazarus 
from  dying  ?  Could  not  Christ  have 
saved  you  or  me  from  perplexity  or  tempta- 
tion or  doubt  ?  He  could,  because  the  power 
of  life  and  death  was  in  Him.  .  .  ,  But  if  it 
were  best  for  Lazarus  to  die,  then  Christ  could 
not  have  caused  that  he  should  not  have  died. 
That  is  a  sublime  incapacity;  to  stand  with 
the  gift  of  life  in  the  all-powerful  hands,  to 
see  the  cry  for  life  in  the  eager  eyes,  to  hear  it 
in  the  dumb  appeal  of  the  terrified  lips,  and 
yet  to  say,  "  No,  not  life  but  death  is  best," 
and  so  to  be  unable  to  give  life, — that  is  a 
sublime,  a  divine  incapacity.  Could  not  Christ 
have  answered  your  prayer  ?  No,  He  could 
not;  not  because  the  thing  you  asked  for  was 
not  in  His  treasury,  but  because  behind  the 
question  of  His  giving  or  refusing  it  there  lay 
the  fundamental  necessity  of  His  nature  and 
His  love,  that  He  should  do  for  you  only  the 
absolutely  best.  The  thing  you  asked  for  was 
not  absolutely  best,  therefore  He  could  not 
give  it.  Back  of  how  many  unanswered  prayers 
lies  that  divine  impossibility  ! 

V.  38. 

If  He  turn  His  face  away. 

Never  answering  a  word. 
When  for  some  ill  boon  we  pray,    .   .   . 
Blessed  be  His  name  for  aye 

For  the  prayers  He  hath  not  heard. 

Katherine  Tynan  Hinkson. 


MAY    II,  131 


Ye  shall  be  sorrowful^  but  your  sorrow  shall  be 
turned  into  joy. — John  xvi.  20. 

IT  must  be  somewhere  in  the  grief  that  the 
help  of  the  grief  is  hidden.  It  must  be  in 
some  discovery  of  the  divine  side  of  the  sor- 
row that  the  consolation  of  the  sorrow  will  be 
found.  It  is  a  wondrous  change  when  a  man 
stops  asking  of  his  distress,  "  How  can  I  throw 
this  off?"  and  asks  instead,  "  What  did  God 
mean  by  sending  this?"  Then,  he  may  well 
believe  that  time  and  work  will  help  him. 
Time,  with  its  necessary  calming  of  the  first 
wild  surface-tumult,  will  let  him  look  deeper 
and  ever  deeper  into  the  divine  purpose  of  the 
sorrow,  will  let  its  deepest  and  most  precious 
meanings  gradually  come  forth  so  that  he  may 
see  them.  Work,  done  in  the  sorrow,  will 
bring  him  into  ever  new  relations  to  the  God  in 
whom  alone  the  full  interpretation  and  relief 
of  the  sorrow  lies.  Time  and  work,  not  as 
means  of  escape  from  distress,  but  as  the  hands 
in  which  distress  shall  be  turned  hither  and 
thither  that  the  light  of  God  may  freely  play 
upon  it;  time  and  work,  so  acting  as  servants 
of  God,  not  as  substitutes  for  God,  are  full  of 
unspeakably  precious  ministries  to  the  suffer- 
ing soul.  But  the  real  relief,  the  only  final 
comfort,  is  God;  and  He  relieves  the  soul  al- 
ways in  its  suffering,  not  from  its  suffering; 
nay,  he  relieves  the  soul  by  its  suffering,  by 
the  new  knowledge  and  possession  of  Himself 
which  could  come  only  through  that  atmos- 
phere of  pain. 


132 


MAY    12. 


THERE  is  something  very  beautiful  to  me 
in  the  truth  that  suffering,  rightly  used, 
is  not  a  cramping,  binding,  restricting  of  the 
human  soul,  but  a  setting  of  it  free.  It  is  not 
a  violation  of  the  natural  order,  it  is  only  a 
more  or  less  violent  breaking  open  of  some 
abnormal  state  that  the  natural  order  may  be 
resumed.  It  is  the  opening  of  a  cage  door. 
It  is  the  breaking  in  of  a  prison  wall.  This  is 
the  thought  of  those  fine  old  lines  of  an  early 
English  poet: 

"  The  soul's  dark  cottage,  battered  and  decayed. 

Lets  in  new  light  through  chinks  that  time  has  made. 
Stronger  by  weakness,  wiser  men  become 
As  they  draw  near  to  their  eternal  home." 

Oh,  how  many  battered  cottages  have  thus 
let  in  the  light  !  How  many  broken  bodies 
have  set  their  souls  free,  and  how  many  shat- 
tered homes  have  let  the  men  and  women  who 
sat  in  darkness  in  them  see  the  great  light  of 
a  present  God!  "Stronger  by  weakness!" 
"  Who  passing  through  the  vale  of  misery  use 
it  for  a  well." 

VI.  30. 

Cast  into  the  pit 
Of  lonely  sorrow, 
The  suffering  soul, 
Looking  aloft, 
Sees  with  amaze 
In  the  daytime  sky 
The  light  of  stars. 

Richard  Watson  Gilder. 


MAY    13.  133 


WE  paint  our  heroes  fighting  their  battles 
in  the  clouds  or  in  the  depths.  Types 
of  power  which  can  only  be  developed  in 
supreme  joy  or  supreme  sorrow  enthrall  our 
imagination;  and  then  some  plain  man  comes 
who  knows  not  either  rapture  or  despair,  who 
simply  has  his  daily  work  to  do,  his  friends  to 
help,  .  .  .  his  trials  to  bear,  his  temptations  to 
conquer,  his  soul  to  save;  and  what  a  healthi- 
ness he  brings  into  our  standards,  with  what  a 
genuine  refreshment  he  fills  our  hearts.  Be- 
hold how  great  are  these  primary  eternal  quali- 
ties— patience,  hope,  kindness,  intelligence, 
trust,  self-sacrifice. 

The  arctic  frost  !  The  torrid  heat  !  Behold 
the  true  strength,  the  real  life  of  the  planet  is 
not  in  these.  It  is  in  the  temperate  lands  that 
the  grape  ripens  and  the  wheat  turns  calmly 
yellow  in  the  constant  sun.  Blessed  is  the  life 
which  grows  itself  into  the  consciousness  of 
how  strong  a  man  is  who  with  the  average 
powers  of  a  man  keeps  his  integrity  and  pur- 
ity, becomes  ever  more  upright  and  pure,  and 
also  encourages  the  lives  of  other  men. 

IV.  204. 

All  service  ranks  the  same  with  God: 

If  now,  as  formerly  He  trod 

Paradise,  His  presence  fills 

Our  earth,  each  only  as  God  wills 

Can  work.      God's  puppets,  best  and  worst, 

Are  we;  there  is  no  last  or  first. 

Browning. 


134  MAY    14. 


To  another  he  gave  two  tale?its. 

Matt.  xxv.  15. 

HTHIS  quiet,  common-place,  unnoticed  man, 
■*  going  his  faithful  way  in  his  dull  dress 
which  makes  no  mark  and  draws  no  eye,  doing 
his  duty  insignificantly  and  thoroughly,  win- 
ning so  unobtrusively  at  last  his  master's 
praise,  ought  to  be  interesting  to  us  all. 

He  ought  to  be  interesting  because  he  rep- 
resents so  much  the  largest  element  in  uni- 
versal human  life.  The  average  man  is  by  far 
the  most  numerous  man.  The  man  who  goes 
beyond  the  average,  the  man  who  falls  short 
of  the  average,  both  of  them,  by  their  very 
definition,  are  exceptions.  They  are  the  out- 
skirts and  fringes,  the  capes  and  promontories 
of  humanity.  The  great  continent  of  human 
life  is  made  up  of  the  average  existences,  the 
mass  of  two-talented  capacity  and  action. 

IV.  194. 


God    sows    June   fields  with    clover,   and   the 

world 
Broadcasts  with  common  kindnesses, 
With  plain,  good  souls  that  cheerfully  fulfil 
Their  homely  duties  in  the  common  field 
Of  daily  life,  ambitious  of  no  more 
Than  to  supply  the  needs  of  friend  or  kin, 
Yet  serve  God's  higher  will  to  human  hearts. 

Samuel  Longfellow. 


MAY   15.  135 


Ignorance  is  the  curse  of  God, 
Knowledge    the    wing    wherewith    we    fly    to 
heaven. 

Shakespeare. 

THOUCiHT  and  the  struggle  after  truth  are 
the  best  joys  of  the  best  men.  To  follow 
out  the  lines  of  speculation  and  of  revelation 
until  they  lead  us  near  the  heart  of  things, 
which  yet  we  know  that  we  can  never  perfectly 
reach;  to  make  some  few  steps  forward  on  the 
journey  which  stretches  out  before  us,  end- 
lessly tempting  and  interesting,  into  eternity; 
to  add  each  day  some  new  stone  to  the  struc- 
ture whose  lines  already  as  they  leave  the  earth 
prophesy  an  infinite  height  for  the  far  top- 
stone, — he  has  not  lived  who  has  not  felt  this 
pleasure.  He  is  not  really  living,  however 
full  he  may  be  of  warmth  of  feeling  and  of 
energy  in  action,  who  does  not  in  some  degree 
know  what  it  is*to  crave  ideas  and  knowledge, 
to  seek  for  truth,  and  to  delight  in  finding  it. 

III.  302. 

The  sequences  of  law 

We  learn  through  mind  alone; 
'Tis  only  through  the  soul 

That  aught  we  know  is  known  : 
With  equal  voice  she  tells 

Of  what  we  touch  and  see 
Within  these  bounds  of  life. 
And  of  a  life  to  be  : 
Proclaiming  One  who  brought  us  hither, 
And  holds  the  keys  of  Whence  and  Whither. 
Francis  Turner  Palgrave. 


136  MAY    16. 


When  the  Spirit  of  truth  shall  come  He  shall 
guide  you  into  all  truth. — John  xvi.  13. 

\17E  live  in  a  redeemed  world, — a  world  full 
^'  of  the  Holy  Ghost  forever  doing  His 
work,  forever  taking  of  the  things  of  Christ 
and  showing  them  to  us.  That  Christ  so  shown 
is  the  most  real,  most  present  power  in  this  new 
Christian  world.  Men  see  Him,  men  talk  with 
Him  continually.  They  do  not  recognize 
Him  ;  they  do  not  know  what  lofty  converse 
they  are  holding  ;  but  some  day  when,  in  some 
way,  a  man  has  become  really  earnest  and 
wants  to  believe  in  the  Son  of  God,  and  is 
asking,  "Who  is  He  that  I  may  believe  on 
Him?"  then  that  Son  of  God  comes  to  him, 
— not  as  a  new  guest  from  the  lofty  heaven, 
but  as  the  familiar  and  slighted  friend  who 
has  waited  and  watched  at  the  doorstep,  who 
has  already  from  the  very  first  filled  the  soul's 
house  with  such  measure  of  His  influence  as 
the  soul's  obstinacy  of  indifference  would 
allow,  and  who  now,  as  He  steps  in  at  the 
soul's  eager  call  to  take  complete  and  final 
possession  of  its  life,  does  not  proclaim  His 
coming  in  awful,  new,  unfamiliar  words,  but 
says  in  tones  which  the  soul  recognizes  and 
wonders  that  it  has  not  known  long  before, 
"Thou  hast  seen  me.  I  have  talked  with 
thee."  V.  211. 


MAY    17.  T37 


Thrice  Holy  Faith  !  whatever  thorns  I  meet, 
As  on  I  totter  with  unpractised  feet, 
Still  let  me  stretch  my  arms  and  cling  to  Thee, 
Meek  nurse  of  souls  through  their  long  infancy. 

S.   T.   COLERH^GE. 

THERE  is  a  large  healthy  hunger  after  be- 
lief which  is  as  different  from  the  morbid 
appetite  of  superstition,  as  health  always  is 
different  from  disease.  There  are  men  who 
want  to  believe, — who  would  rather  believe 
than  not, — when  some  great  spiritual  theory 
of  the  universe  is  offered  them  to  account  for 
its  bewilderments  and  to  help  its  troubles. 
The  secret  of  their  life  seems  to  be  this,  that 
they  are  men  deeply  impressed  with  the  infi- 
niteness  of  life.  Does  that  seem  vague  and 
transcendental  ?  They  are  men  who  are  al- 
ways conscious  of  the  spiritual  and  unseen 
underneath  the  visible  and  material, — men 
who  are  always  sure  that  there  is  a  great  re- 
gion of  unknown  truth  which  they  ought  to 
know,  and  who  are  restless  after  it.  To  such 
men  all  that  they  see  presupposes  things 
which  they  do  not  see. 

V.  207. 

Every  natural  flower  which  grows  on  earth 
Implies  a  flower  upon  the  spiritual  side, 
Substantial,  archetypal,  all  aglow 
With  blossoming  causes,  — not  so  far  away 
But  we  whose  spirit-sense  is  somewhat  cleared 
May  catch  at  something   of   the    bloom   and 

breath, 
Too  veguely  apprehended. 

Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning. 


138  MAY    r 


Again,  the  devil  taketh  Him  up  into  an  exceed- 
ing high  77iountain  and  showeth  Hifn  all  the  king- 
doms of  this  world,  and  the  glory  of  them. 

Matt.  iv.  8. 

SO  does  the  young  man  in  some  moment  or 
some  period  of  his  life  come  in  sight  of 
the  great  world.  ...  It  is  all  very  vague — 
it  must  be.  The  traveler  upon  the  road  to 
London,  all  aglow  with  its  vision,  does  not 
trace  how  every  street  and  alley  runs  in  the 
great  city,  nor  see  how  the  bricks  are  laid 
in  every  man's  back  yard.  It  is  the  "  light 
of  London,"  not  the  lamp  in  this  or  that 
shop-window,  that  he  sees.  And  so  it  is 
the  world,  all  vague,  mysterious,  and  wonder- 
ful, which  the  spirit  of  the  young  man  sees 
from  his  mountain,  not  this  or  that  which  is 
happening  in  the  world.  It  is  the  world  all 
together,  the  world  of  tumultuous,  roaring, 
awful,  fascinating  human  life,  the  kingdoms 
of  the  world,  and  the  glory  of  them — this  is 
what  he  sees.  There  is  a  special  value,  a 
special  contribution  to  the  total  experience 
and  character  of  a  man,  in  the  years  which 
hold  that  vision— the  years  when  the  narrow- 
ness of  childhood  is  broken,  but  the  absorption 
in  the  details  of  life  has  not  yet  begun;  these 
years  wherein  the  young  man  is  catching  sight 
of  the  world.  Blessed  is  he  who  keeps  those 
years  pure  and  lofty. 

VII.  168,  169. 


MAY    19.  139 


IVatc/i  and p?- ay  that  ye  enter  not  into  tempta- 
tion.— Matt.  xxvi.  14. 

OIIR  Lord's  temptation  makes  us  see  that 
temptation  is  not  sin,  nor  does  it  neces- 
sarily involve  sin.  Christ  was  sinless  and  yet 
tempted;  therefore  it  is  possible  for  man  to  be 
tempted  and  yet  sinless.  Now  so  many  of  us, 
the  moment  we  are  strongly  tempted,  seem  to 
fall  into  a  sort  of  demoralized  condition,  as  if 
our  innocence  were  over,  as  if  the  charm  were 
broken  and  we  were  already  sinners;  and  so 
we  too  often  give  ourselves  up  easily  to  the 
sin.  .  .  .  To  any  soul  in  such  a  state  what 
could  we  say  but  this  :  "  Look  up  and  see  the 
truth  in  Jesus  ;  do  you  not  see  it  there  ?  To 
be  tempted  is  not  wicked,  is  not  shameful,  is 
not  unworthy  even  of  Him.  It  is  the  lot,  in 
one  view  it  is  even  the  glory,  of  humanity. 
Sin  does  not  begin  and  shame  does  not  begin 
until  the  will  gives  way,  until  you  yield  to 
temptation.  Stand  guard  over  that  will,  resist 
temptation,  and  then  to  have  been  tempted 
shall  be  to  you  what  it  was  to  your  Saviour — 
a  glory  and  a  crown,  a  part  of  your  history 
worthy  to  be  written  with  thanksgiving  in  the 
Book  of  Life,  as  His  is  written  in  His  book  of 
life."  Is  not  this  the  strength  and  courage 
that  many  a  soul  needs  ?  vil.  133,  134. 

Pray 
"  Lead  us  into  no  such  temptations,  Lord." 
Yea,  but,  O  Thou  whose  servants  are  the  bold, 
Lead  such  temptations  by  the  head  and  hair. 
Reluctant  dragons,  up  to  who  dares  fight. 
That  so  he  may  do  battle  and  have  praise. 

Browning. 


I40  MAY    20. 


1 T  is  good  to  multiply  experiences.  It  is  good 
*  to  do  many  things  and  to  have  manifold 
relations  with  the  world.  It  is  good  to  touch 
many  people  and  to  see  many  sights;  but  it 
is  good,  it  is  necessary,  to  be  content  with  no 
experience  which  remains  simply  as  experience 
and  does  not  pass  on  and  into  character. 
Events  are  great  if  they  make  dispositions. 
The  Natural  is  precious  if  "  afterward,"  out  of 
it,  comes  the  Spiritual.  The  experienced  man 
is  happy,  if  he  has  really  drunk  the  rain  and 
sunshine  of  the  experiences  which  have  come 
to  him  into  his  heart  and  is  the  ripened  man, 
otherwise  he  is  only  like  the  rock  on  which 
every  passer-by  has  scrawled  his  name. 

VI.  254. 

And  so  shall  bright  patience 

And  trustfulness  teach 
Some  wonderful  alchemy, 

Turning  to  gold 
All  things  whatsoever 

That  come  in  its  reach — 
The  dull  and  the  narrow. 

The  new  and  the  old, — 
Till  each  shall  be  bright 

With  the  grace  and  the  glow 
Of  the  goodness  of  God, 

Who  loveth  us  so  ! 

J.  L.  M.  W. 


MAY   21.  141 


Be  strongs  .  .    .  and  work  ;  for  I  am  with  yoji, 
saith  the  Lord  of  hosts. — Hag.  ii.  4. 

T  THINK  we  want  to  urge  most  strenuously 
■^  upon  young  men  the  need,  the  absolute 
necessity,  that  in  the  appointed  and  demanded 
work  of  their  life  they  should  look  for  and 
should  find  the  joy  of  their  life.  To  do  your 
work  because  you  must  ;  to  do  your  work  as 
a  slavery  ;  and  then,  having  got  it  done  as 
speedily  and  easily  as  possible,  to  look  some- 
where else  for  enjoyment, — that  makes  a  very 
dreary  life.  No  man  who  works  so  does  the 
best  work.  No  man  who  works  so  lingers 
lovingly  over  his  work  and  asks  himself  if  there 
is  not  something  he  can  do  to  make  it  more 
perfect.  "  My  meat  is  to  do  the  will  of  Him 
that  sent  me,  and   to  finish   His  work,"  said 

Jesus. 

II.  32. 

Go  from  the  east  to  the  west,  as  the  sun  and 

the  stars  direct  thee. 
Go  with  the  girdle  of  man,  go  and  encompass 

the  earth; 
Not  for  the  gain  of  the  gold,  the  getting,  the 

hoarding,  the  having. 
But  for  the  joy  of  the  deed,  but   for  the  duty 

to  do. 

Arthur  Hugh  Clough. 


142  MAY    22. 


Man,  if  he  do  but  live  within  the  light 
Of  high  endeavors,  daily  spreads  abroad 
His  being  armed  with  strength  that  cannot  fail. 

Wordsworth. 

T^HERE  are  many  among  us  who  feel  the 
*  need  to  have  the  labor  of  our  life  re- 
deemed,— merchants,  clerks,  lawyers,  labor- 
ers, teachers,  housekeepers,  one  thing  or  an- 
other,— the  chosen  or  fated  task  of  our  life  so 
often  seems  to  be  mere  drudgery,  crowding  us 
down,  pressing  the  life  out  of  us.  .  .  .  What 
you  need  is  some  purpose  beyond.  What 
shall  it  be  ?  .  .  .  If  you  can  do  your  work 
for  a  friend  or  for  a  family  as  well  as  for  your- 
self, you  have  already  redeemed  much  of  its 
sordidness.  If  you  can  do  it  for  a  cause,  for 
the  progress  of  society  and  the  improvement 
of  business,  for  your  country,  for  your  church, 
then  you  have  lifted  it  still  more.  If  you  can 
do  it  for  God,  in  perfect,  childlike,  loving  de- 
sire for  His  glory,  then  your  work,  be  it  as 
heavy  in  its  nature  as  it  may,  leaps  of  itself 
from  the  low  ground,  and,  instead  of  crush- 
ing you  with  it  to  the  earth,  carries  you  up 
every  day  into  the  presence  of  the  God  for 
whom  you  did  it. 

VI.  52,  53- 

Ye  know  that  your  labor  is  not  in  vain  in  the 
Lord. — I  Cor.  xv.  58. 


MAY    23.  143 


W 


/  shall  shew  you  plainly  of  the  Father. 

John  xvi.  25. 

HEN  we  want  to  gather  into  one  great 
comprehensive  statement  the  purpose 
for  which  Jesus  lived,  and  the  power  which 
His  Hfe  has  had  over  the  lives  of  men,  we 
must  seize  His  great  idea  and  find  His  power 
there.  .  .  .  His  power  is  not  in  the  miracles 
that  He  did,  not  even  in  the  marvellous 
nature  that  He  bore,  but  in  the  great  truth, 
the  primal  and  final  fact  of  the  universe, 
so  far  as  man  has  any  part  in  it,  which  the 
whole  nature  of  the  Saviour  uttered.  .  .  . 
That  idea  is  the  relation  of  childhood  and 
fatherhood  between  man  and  God.  Man  is 
the  child  of  God  by  nature.  He  is  ignorant 
and  rebellious,— the  prodigal  child  of  God; 
but  his  ignorance  and  rebellion  never  break 
that  first  relationship.  It  is  always  a  child 
ignorant  of  his  Father;  always  a  child  rebel- 
lious against  his  Father.  That  is  what  makes 
the  tragedy  of  human  history,  and  always  pre- 
vents sin  from  becoming  an  insignificant  and 
squalid  thing.  To  reassert  the  fatherhood  and 
childhood  as  an  unlost  truth,  and  to  reestablish 
its  power  as  the  central  fact  of  life;  to  tell  men 
that  they  were,  and  to  make  them  actually  be, 
the  sons  of  God,— that  was  the  purpose  of  the 
coming  of  Jesus,  and  the  shaping  power  of 
His  life.  VIII.  12,  13,  14- 

Who  knows  God's  fatherhood 
Knows  he  rides  safe,  however  tempest-tossed: 
Thert  is  no  darkness  ;  in  love's  light  'tis  lost. 

S.  W.  Weitzel. 


144  MAY    24. 

Ask,  and  ye  shall  receive. — Johx  xvi.  24. 

We  kneel  how  weak,  we  rise  how  full  of  power  ! 
Why,  therefore,  should  we  do  ourselves  this  wrong. 
Or  others,  that  we  are  not  always  strong, 
That  we  are  ever  overborne  with  care. 
That  we  should  ever  weak  and  heartless  be. 
Anxious  or  troubled,  when  with  us  is  prayer. 
And  joy,  and  strength,  and  courage  are  with  thee? 

R.  G.  Trench. 

PURE  humanitarianism  and  pure  fatalism 
can  neither  of  them  pray.  But  let  us 
have  a  world  where  the  Creator's  glory  and  the 
creature's  good  are  like  sound  and  echo,  like 
sunlight  and  reflection  to  each  other  ;  where 
every  advance  in  one  chronicles  and  repeats  it- 
self in  the  other  ;  let  man  by  sovereign  mercy- 
be  admitted  into  such  an  intimacy  with  his 
God,  and  then  prayer — what  is  it  ?  What 
but  the  answer  of  the  echo  to  the  sound,  the 
uttered  sympathy  of  the  one  common  life, 
man  responding  to  God's  "Be  happy,  O  my 
child!"  with  an  ever  grateful  and  reverent 
"  Be  glorious,  O  my  Father  I  "  As  we  go  up 
higher  in  the  new  life  prayer  becomes  less  ser- 
vile and  so  becomes  more  true.  When  the 
new  life  is  finished,  the  sympathy  complete  in 
heaven,  who  can  say  what  prayer  will  be  ?  It 
will  be  what  Christ's  was,  in  His  perfect  human- 
ity talking  with  the  perfect  Divinity  to  which 
it  stood  so  near.  There  will  be  no  wandering 
eyes,  no  listless  thoughts,  no  formal  words,  no 
hearts  that  pray  because  they  must;  but  souls 
alight  with  a  new  likeness  shall  leap  into  a  new 
nearness  to  their  God,  and  prayer  be  heaven 
to  the  perfected  human  life.  God's  glory  and 
man's  good — who  will  divide  them  there  ? 

vn.  233. 


MAY   25.  145 


I 


Remember  how  short  my  time  is. 

Ps.  Ixxxix.  47. 

IF  a  man  is  able  to  conceive  of  immortal- 
ity; if  he  can  picture  to  himself  a  being 
who  can  live  forever;  if  he  recognizes  in  him- 
self any  powers  which  can  outlast  and  laugh 
at  death, — then  any  limit  of  life  must  seem 
narrow;  against  the  broad  background  of  the 
whole,  any  part  must  seem  small.  On  the 
blue  sky  the  almost  million  miles  of  the  sun's 
breadth  seem  narrow.  It  is  here  that  the 
truth  about  the  matter  lies.  It  is  only  by  the 
dim  sense  of  his  immortality,  only  by  the  di- 
vine sight  of  himself  as  a  being  capable  of 
long,  long  life,  that  man  thinks  his  life  on 
earth  is  short.  Only  by  losing  that  divine 
si^ht  of  himself,  and  looking  at  himself  as  the 
beasts  look  at  themselves,  can  he  come  to 
think  his  life  long.  The  beast's  life  never 
seems  short  to  him.  Think  of  yourself  as  a 
beast  and  your  life  will  never  seem  short  to 
you.  It  is  the  divine  consciousness  in  man, 
the  consciousness  that  he  is  a  child  of  God, 
that  makes  him  know  he  is  short-lived.  Feel 
this,  and  is  not  the  shortness  of  life  the  crown 
and  glory  of  the  race  ? 

I.  318,  319. 


Courage!  for  life  is  hasting 

To  endless  life  away  : 
The  inner  life  unwasting 

Transfigures  thy  dull  clay! 

George  Macuonald. 


146  MAY   26. 


A  MEMORY  which  is  not  also  a  prophecy 
is  terrible.  .  .  .  You  recall  the  happy 
days  of  an  old  friendship.  Unless  it  is  a  per- 
petual revelation  to  you  of  the  perfect  friend- 
ship of  the  perfect  life  it  comes  to  be  a  tor- 
ture. 

"  Tis  better  to  have  loved  and  lost 
Than  never  to  have  loved  at  all  ;  " 

but  the  true  blessedness  is  reached  only  when 
you  know  that  that  which  you  have  seen 
plunged  into  the  fiery  furnace  is  to  come  out 
again,  the  same,  but  finer,  purer,  holier,  more 
worthy  of  the  child  of  God  ! 

When  we  have  really  grasped  this  truth, 
then  how  interesting  and  impressive  becomes 
the  sight  of  the  life  of  our  fellow-men!  Mafiy 
and  many  of  these  men  whom  we  see  plodding 
on  in  their  dusty  ways  are  travelling  with 
visions  in  their  souls.  Nobody  knows  it  but 
themselves  and  God.  Once,  years  ago,  they 
saw  a  light.  They  knew,  if  only  for  a  moment, 
what  companionships,  what  attainments,  they 
were  made  for.  That  light  has  never  faded. 
It  is  the  soul  of  good  things  which  they  are 
doing  in  the  world  to-day.  It  makes  them 
sure  when  other  men  think  their  faith  is  gone. 
It  will  be  with  them  till  the  end,  until  they 
come  to  all  it  prophesies. 

VII.  341,  342. 


The  vision  is  yet  for  an  appointed  time,  but  at 
the  end  it  shall  speak,  and  not  lie  j  though  it  tarry, 
wait  for  it. — Hab.  ii.  3. 


MAY    27.  147 


A  CLOUD  received  Him  out  of  their 
sight.  * '  Into  mystery  and  a  darkness  to 
which  His  going  there  alone  gives  any  true  light 
our  Saviour  goes.  But  oh,  my  friends,  when  by 
and  by  our  way  leads  also  into  mystery  and 
darkness,  when  truth  becomes  covered  with 
doubt,  and  joy  with  sadness,  and  life  begins 
to  feel  the  waiting  death,  what  can  help  us 
like  the  faith  of  the  ascended  Jesus  ?  The 
way  into  the  cloud  may  be  a  way  up  and  not  a 
way  down,  a  way  toward  Him  and  not  a  way 
from  Him.  Doubt,  sorrow,  death — these  may 
be,  these  to  the  true  soul  must  be,  like  the 
clouds  over  the  Mount  of  Olives  through  which 
the  Son  of  God  went  up  to  the  right  hand  of 
His  Father.  "We  which  remain  shall  be 
ca:tight  up  in  the  clouds,  to  meet  the  Lord  in 
the  air:  and  so  shall  we  ever  be  with  the  Lord. 
Wherefore  comfort  one  another" — comfort 
yourselves  too,  comfort  and  strengthen  your- 
selves and  one  another — "with  these  words." 

VII.  301. 


Out  to  the  earthward  brink 
Of  that  great  tideless  sea 

Light  from  Christ's  garments  streams. 

Cowards  that  fear  to  tread  such  beams 

The  angels  can  but  pity  when  they  sink. 

Believing  thus,  I  joy  although  1  lie  in  dust.  .  . 

Long  as  God  ceases  not,  I  cannot  cease: 
I  must  arise. 

Helen  Hunt  Jackson. 


148  MAY    28. 


I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you,  .  .  .  that  where 
I  am,  there  ye  may  be  also, — John  xiv.  2,  3. 

IF  on  some  hitherto  unexplored  and  unin- 
habited island  far  away  in  the  seas  a  man 
goes  to  live,  ...  he  clothes  the  island  with 
intelligibleness.  I  can  understand  and  realize 
its  existence  when  I  know  that  a  human  foot 
has  been  pressed  upon  its  sandy  beach.  If  he 
is  a  great,  strong,  notably  manly  man  who 
goes  there,  carrying  with  him  a  large  share  of 
our  humanity,  then  he  gives  the  island  more 
than  intelligibleness.  He  gives  it  dignity.  It 
is  full  of  interest,  .  .  .  But  if  the  man  who 
goes  there  is  my  friend,  and  if  he  tells  me  that 
he  is  going  to  make  it  ready  for  my  coming, 
that  he  will  come  back  again  and  take  me  to 
it  by  and  by,  then  how  that  island  burns  for 
me — the  one  live,  real,  shining  spot  in  all  the 
world  !  It  is  the  goal  of  all  my  thoughts,  the 
lodestone  of  my  hopes,  I  think  of  it  until  the 
familiar  house  in  which  I  was  born,  and  wher.e 
I  am  living  still,  seems  strange  to  me  com- 
pared with  that  one  shining  spot  that  has  be- 
come so  real.  My  friend's  love  makes  it  all 
glow  and  burn  before  me  as  if  I  myself  already 
saw  the  sun  shining  on  its  mountain-tops  and 
flashing  on  the  surface  of  its  rippling  streams. 

VII.  300, 

So,  when  the  times  of  restitution  come — 
The  sweet  times  of  refreshing  come  at  last — 
My  God  shall  fill  my  longings  to  the  brim  ; 
Therefore  I  look  and  wait  and  long  for  Him  : 
Not  wearied,  though  the  work  be  wearisome. 
Nor  fainting,  though  the  time  be  almost  past, 
Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


MAY    29.  149 


LET  us  try,  if  we  are  really  Christians  who 
believe  that  Christ  our  Lord  has  "as- 
cended into  heaven,"  to  enter  into  His  heav- 
enly life  by  the  largeness  and  loftiness  of  the 
prayers  that  we  bring  to  Him.  God  forbid 
that  we  should  so  misread  His  exaltation  that 
we  should  hesitate  to  ask  Him  for  the  very 
smallest  things;  but  the  things  that  belong  to 
our  peace  are  what  He  wants  to  give  us.  The 
things  that  make  this  world  and  its  interests 
seem  small  when  we  think  of  them  :  the  for- 
giveness of  sin,  the  perfect  purification  of  our 
souls,  the  driving  out  of  selfishness,  the  disre- 
gard of  comfort  in  pursuit  of  duty,  the  care 
for  brethren  more  than  for  ourselves;  not 
comfort,  not  spiritual  rest,  not  freedom  from 
pain  here  or  hereafter — not  these,  but  the 
chance,  the  power,  the  will  to  glorify  God  our 
Father  in  our  lives  as  He,  the  perfect  Son,  did 
in  His — this  we  may  ask  if  we  believe  in  the 
Ascension  and  have  understood  the  heavenly 
life  of  Him  who  is  still  our  Brother  and 
Saviour. 


VII.  294. 


Beyond  this  shadow  and  this  turbulent  sea, 

Shadow  of  death  and  turbulent  sea  of  death, 
Lies  all  we  long  to  have  or  long  to  be. 

Take  heart,  tired  man,  toil   on   with   lessen- 
ing breath, 
Lay  violent  hands  on  heaven's  high  treasury, 
Be  what  you  long  to  be  through  life's  long 
scathe. 

Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


150  MAY   30. 


When  the  bm'nt  offeri7ig  began,  the  song  of  the 
Lo7'd  also  began  with  the  tni7npets. 

2  Chron.  xxix.  27. 

THE  act  of  sacrifice  was  done  with  a  chorus 
of  delight.  .  .  .  Self-sacrifice,  which  is 
what  these  burnt  offerings  picturesquely  rep- 
resented, is  universally  and  perpetually  neces- 
sary. .  .  .  Can  the  life,  too,  be  offered  as 
the  beast  was  of  old,  with  song  and  trum- 
pet ?  .  .  .  There  are  always  glimpses  of 
man's  highest  life  which  show  us,  like  the  first 
streaks  of  light  before  the  dawn,  what  it  would 
be  if  all  the  sky  were  filled  with  glory;  and  so 
there  are  always  exalted  lives,  and  exalted  mo- 
ments in  the  lives,  I  hope,  of  all  of  us,  in 
which  we  do  catch  sight  of  the  joy  and  glory 
of  self-sacrifice.  Not  many  years  ago,  when 
the  young  men  went  to  the  war,  was  it  not 
true  that  the  fact  of  sacrifice  intensified  the 
joy  ?  It  was  a  joy  to  save  their  country,  to 
feel  sure,  as  it  is  not  often  given  to  men  viv- 
idly to  feel,  that  they  were  doing  a  real  and 
valuable  part  of  her  salvation.  No  safe  and 
easy  task  could  ever  have  filled  the  heart  with 
such  a  sober  and  deep  delight. 

II.  23,  25. 

'Tis  no  Man  we  celebrate, 
By  his  country's  victories  great  ?  .   .   . 
But  the  pith  and  marrow  of  a  Nation 
Drawing  force  from  all  her  men, 
Highest,  humblest,  weakest,  all, 
For  her  time  of  need,  and  then 
Pulsing  it  through  them  again. 

James  Russell  Lowell. 


MAY   31.  151 

/  saw  the  deady  small  and  great,  stafid  before 
God. — Rev.  xx.  12. 

rQT.  JOHN]  saw  what  souls  go  to.  We  are 
LO  so  apt  to  see  only  what  souls  go  from. 
When  our  friend  dies  we  think  of  all  the 
warm  delights  of  life,  all  the  sweet  friend- 
ships, all  the  interesting  occupations,  all  the 
splendor  of  the  sunlight  which  he  leaves  be- 
hind. If  we  could  only  know,  somewhat  as 
John  must  have  known  after  his  vision,  the 
presence  of  God  into  which  our  friend  enters 
on  the  other  side,  the  higher  standards,  the 
larger  fellowship  with  all  his  race,  and  the  new 
assurance  of  personal  immortality  in  God;  if 
we-  could  know  all  this,  how  our  poor  com- 
fortless efforts  of  comfort  when  our  friends 
depart,  our  feeble  raking-over  of  the  ashes  of 
memory,  our  desperate  struggles  to  think  that 
the  inevitable  must  be  all  right;  how  this 
would  all  give  way  to  something  almost  like  a 
burst  of  triumph,  as  the  soul  which  we  loved 
went  forth  to  such  vast  enlargement,  to  such 
gflorious  consummation  of  its  life  ! 
^  IV.  72. 

Where  chill  or  change  can  never  rise, 
Deep  in  the  depth  of  Paradise 
They  rest  world-wearied  heart  and  eyes — 

Jubilate. 

Safe  as  a  hidden  brooding  dove. 
With  perfect  peace  within,  above. 
They  love,  and  look  for  perfect  love — 

Hallelujah. 
Christina  (;.  Rossetti. 


152  JUNE    I. 

Only  the  anointed  eye 

Sees  in  common  things — 
Gleam  of  wave  and  tint  of  sky — 

Heavenly  blossomings. 
To  the  hearts  where  light  was  birth 

Nothing  can  be  drear; 
Budding  through  the  gloom  of  earth, 

Heaven  is  always  near. 

Lucy  Larcom. 

I  BELIEVE  our  lives  are  too  prosaic.  I 
think  we  might  all  live  up  in  a  purer 
air.  ...  I  think  the  strange  beauty  of  the 
nature  all  around  us  might  be  more  fully 
grasped.  I  think  that,  made  pure  and  strong 
by  thoughts  like  these,  we  might  all  make  our 
lives  to  poems: 

"  Be  good,  be  true,  and  let  who  will  be  clever  ; 

Do  noble  things,  not  dream  them,  all  day  long  ; 
And  so  make  life,  death,  and  that  vast  forever, 
One  grand,  sweet  song." 

If  it  be  poetry,  as  I  think  it  is,  to  go  out 
to-morrow  morning  with  all  our  closets  open 
and  all  our  moral  enginery  in  play,  ready  to 
see  the  miracle  that  the  sun  will  bring  up  over 
the  river  and  the  hills  once  more,  ready  to 
learn  the  lesson  of  the  earth — a  work  to  do 
and  manly  strength  to  do  it, — ready  to  sym- 
pathize with  and  worship  all  that  is  worthy  of 
our  sympathy  and  homage,  ready  to  grow 
more  godlike  in  our  reverence  for  God — if  this 
be  poetry,  then  fifty  poems  may  begin  to-mor- 
row, with  earth's  grand  music  for  them  all  to 
sing  to,  and  heaven  at  last  to  crown  the  vic- 
tor with  a  sweet  "  Well  done." 

X.  245,  246. 


JUNE    2.  153 


Still  are  we  saying,  "  Teach  us  how  to  pray  "  ? 
Oh,    teach   us   how    to    love!   and   then  our 
prayer 
Through  other  lives  will  find  its  upward  way. 

HE  best  finds  God  and  is  God's  who  finds 
Him  and  becomes  His,  not  in  separation 
from  his  brethren  but  in  the  certainty  of  God's 
love  to  all  and  of  the  belonging  of  all  souls  to 
God.  ...  If  I  prayed  all  alone, — my  prayer 
the  only  prayer  which  pierced  the  darkness  be- 
cause mine  was  the  only  soul  which  stood  in 
need, — then  I  can  possibly  imagine  that  as  I 
stood  and  looked  I  should  behold  the  answer 
come  like  a  white  dove  out  of  the  distance 
until  it  laid  itself  upon  my  soul  and  gave  it 
peace.  But  now  I  cannot  help  seeing  what  a 
far  greater  richness  there  will  be  if  my  peti- 
tion blends  with  a  million  others,  and  the  an- 
swer comes  in  some  great  outpouring  of  the 
divine  light  and  love  which  addresses  itself  to 
all  the  world. 

V.  128. 


Nor  nursing  each  our  own  distress, 

To  Thee  we  press; 
Prayer's  overflow  drowns  selfishness; 

Soul  within  soul. 
One  voice  to  Thee  our  linked  petitions  roll; 
Heale'-  of  the  world's  hurt,  oh,  make  us  whole! 

Lucy  Larcom. 


154  JUNE   3. 


But  He  ansivered  her  not  a  word. 

Matt.  xv.  23. 

SOME  prayers  Christ  does  not  answer,  we 
may  say,  because  they  ask  Him  to  do  our 
work  for  us.  .  .  .  Tell  me,  is  there  a  kinder 
thing  that  you  can  do  for  your  pupil  who 
comes  up  to  you  with  his  slate,  asking  you  to 
work  out  for  him  his  problem,  than  to  bid  him 
go  back  to  his  seat  and  do  his  task  himself, 
and  get  that  discipline  and  learning  which  is 
really  the  object  of  his  having  his  task  set  to 
him  at  all  ?  You  ask  Christ  to  show  you  with 
a  flash  of  lightning  what  your  sorrow  means. 
You  ask  him  to  reveal  to  you  by  some  super- 
natural illumination  which  path  of  life  you 
ought  to  take,  which  friendship  you  shall  cul- 
tivate, what  profession  you  can  most  success- 
fully pursue.  There  comes  no  answer  to  those 
prayers,  .  .  .  And  why  ?  Those  are  your 
problems.  It  is  by  hard  work  of  yours,  by 
watchful  vigilance,  by  careful  weighing  of 
consideration  against  consideration,  that  you 
must  settle  those  things  for  yourself. 

V.  133. 


Not  for  thy  neighbor  nor  for  thee, 
Be  sure,  was  life  designed  to  be 
A  draught  of  dull  complacency. 
One  Power  too  is  it  who  doth  give 
The  food  without  us,  and  within 
The  strength  that  makes  it  nutritive.   .   . 
So  thou  but  strive,  thou  soon  shalt  see 
Defeat  itself  is  victory. 

Arthur  Hugh  Clough, 


JUNE    4.  155 


If  Thou  be  the  Son  of  God^  cofnmand  that  these 
stones  be  made  bread. — Matt.  iv.  3. 

DO  you  not  see  what  the  temptation  was 
and  what  it  is  forever  ?  O  my  dear 
friend,  God  made  these  things,  and  made  you 
to  live  by  them,  but  not  by  them  alone.  Go 
on;  gather  the  joy  out  of  the  earth  and  sky, 
out  of  the  bread  He  gives  you  power  to  win, 
out  of  the  water  that  He  makes  to  gush  at 
your  feet;  only,  when  the  time  comes — as  it 
is  sure  to  come  some  time,  as  perhaps  it  is  to 
come  now — when,  in  order  to  speak  some  word 
out  of  His  mouth  to  you,  some  word  of  duty 
or  charity  or  holiness.  He  takes  these  things 
away,  and  you  are  tempted  to  shut  your  ear  to 
His  word  in  order  that  you  may  keep  these 
pleasant  things,  then  you  are  just  where  Jesus 
was — the  devil  is  at  your  ear.  May  God  help 
you  to  see  what  Jesus  saw — what  He  said  after- 
ward, perhaps  remembering  His  own  tempta- 
tion: "  The  life  is  more  than  meat."  May  he 
help  you  to  say,  "No!  Nothing — not  even 
His  gifts — shall  blind  or  deafen  me  to  Him. 
Man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by 
every  word  out  of  the  mouth  of  God  " — the 
blessed  sacrifice  of  sense  to  spirit. 

VII.  143. 

To  sacrifice,  to  share  ; 

To  give  even  as  He  gave  ; 

For  others'  wants  to  care  ; 
Not  our  own  lives  to  save — 

The  hidden  manna  this, 

Whereof  who  eateth,  he 
Grows  up  in  perfectness 

Of  Christ-like  symmetry. 

Lucy  Larcom. 


156  JUNE    5. 


If  any  man  thirsty  let  him  cof?ie  to  me  and  drink. 

John  vii.  37. 

REMEMBER,  it  is  not  just  compensation, 
but  transformation  that  you  are  to  seek. 
Not  Heaven  yet.  That  looms  before  us  al- 
ways, tempting  us  on;  but  now  the  earth,  with 
all  its  duties,  sorrows,  difficulties,  doubts,  and 
dangers.  We  want  a  faith,  a  truth,  a  grace  to 
help  us  now^  right  here,  where  we  are  stum- 
bling about,  dizzied  and  fainting  with  our 
thirst.  And  we  can  have  it.  One  who  was 
man,  yet  mightier  than  man,  has  walked  the 
vale  before  us.  When  He  walked  it,  he  turned 
it  all  into  a  well  of  living  water.  To  them 
who  are  willing  to  walk  in  His  footsteps,  to 
keep  in  His  light,  the  well  He  opened  shall  be 
forever  flowing.  Nay,  it  shall  pass  into  them 
and  fulfil  there  Christ's  own  words:  "Who- 
soever drinketh  of  the  water  that  I  shall  give 
him  shall  never  thirst,  but  the  water  that  I 
shall  give  him  shall  be  in  him  a  well  of  water 
springing  up  into  everlasting  life." 

VI.  34. 

I  am  the  Fountain  of  Life,  that  cannot  be 
exhausted. 

Whosoever  is  sorrowful,  let  him  come  to  me 
that  he  may  be  comforted; 

Whosoever  is  dry,  let  him  come  that  he  may 
be  filled  with  the  richness  and  fulness  of  the 
Spirit; 

Whosoever  is  wearied,  let  him  come  that  he 
may  be  refreshed  with  joy. 

Thomas  A  Kempis. 


JUNE   6.  157 


The  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost  be  with  you 
all. — 2  Cor.  xiii.  14. 

THE  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Ghost  is  a  contin- 
ual protest  against  every  constantly  re- 
curring tendency  to  separate  God  from  the  cur- 
rent world.  A  God  who  made  the  world  and 
then  left  it  to  run  its  course  under  the  tyranny  of 
force  and  law;  a  God  who  redeemed  the  world 
eighteen  centuries  ago  and  left  it  to  be  blessed 
by  or  to  miss  the  blessing  of  the  redemption 
which  He  had  provided — neither  of  these 
ideas  of  Deity  can  comprehend  the  truth  of 
God  the  Holy  Ghost.  A  present  God,  an 
ever-living  God,  an  ever-pleading,  ever-help- 
ing, ever-saving  God — this  is  the  God  whom 
Christ  told  of  and  promised,  the  God  who 
came  in  the  miracle  of  Pentecost  and  is  for- 
ever here.  .  .  .  Wherever  men's  dealings  with 
each  other,  or  men's  value  of  each  other,  is 
colored  with  the  influence  of  the  truth  that  we 
live  in  a  world  full  of  God;  wherever  our 
communion  with  each  other  takes  place  through 
Him,  the  sacredness  and  usefulness  of  what 
we  are  to  each  other  resulting  from  what  He 
is  to  all  of  us,  then  our  communion  is  a  com- 
munion of  the  Holy  Ghost.  VII.  307. 

We  faintly  hear,  we  dimly  see. 

In  differing  phrase  we  pray; 
But,  dim  or  clear,  we  own  in  Thee 

The  Light,  the  Truth,  the  Way. 

Thy  litanies,  sweet  offices 

Of  love  and  gratitude; 
Thy  sacramental  liturgies 

The  joy  of  doing  good.  Whittier. 


158  JUNE    7. 


A  friend, — it  is  another  name  for  God, 
Whose  love  inspires  all  love,  is  all  in  all; 
Profane  it  not,  lest  lowest  shame  befall! 

Worship  no  idol,  whether  star  or  clod; 
Nor  think  that  any  friend  is  truly  thine, 

Save  as  life's  closest  link  with  Love  Divine. 

Lucy  Larcom. 

ONE  of  the  most  valuable  changes  which 
comes  to  a  human  friendship  when  it  is 
deepened  into  a  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
is  the  assurance  of  permanence  which  it  ac- 
quires. There  is  always  a  lurking  distrust  and 
suspicion  of  instability  in  friendship  which  has 
not  the  deepest  basis.  No  present  certainty 
answers  for  the  future.  Present  kindness  only 
bears  witness  of  present  regard,  and  each  new 
moment  needs  its  new  proof.  How  we  have 
all  felt  this! 

"  Alas  that  neither  bonds  nor  vows 
Can  certify  possession  ! 
Torments  me  still  the  fear  that  love 
Died  in  its  last  expression." 

This  must  be  so  to  some  degree  with  an  affec- 
tion where  each  is  held  to  each  only  by  the 
continuance  of  personal  liking.  But  when 
friendship  enters  into  God,  and  men  are  bound 
together  through  their  common  union  with 
Him,  all  the  strength  of  that  higher  union  au- 
thenticates and  assures  the  faithfulness  and 
perseverance  of  the  love  that  is  bound  up  with 
it.  The  souls  that  meet  in  God  may  well  be- 
lieve that  they  shall  hold  each  other  as  eter- 
nally as  He  holds  each  and  each  holds  Him. 

VII.  312. 


JUNE    8.  159 


My  peace  I  give  imto  you. — John  xiv.  27. 

I  KNOW  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  peace 
to  seek  and  find.      But  here  is  my  work  to 
do,  to  worry  over  whether  I  am  doing  it  right, 
to  keep  myself  restless  over  how  it  will  turn 
out.    ' '  My  work, "  I  say ;  but  if  I  can  know  that 
it  is  not  my  work,  but  God's,  should  I  not  cast 
away  my  restlessness,  even  while  I  worked  on 
more  faithfully  and  untiringly  than  ever  ?  .   .   . 
If    I  could  pour  through  all    the    good    plan 
over  which  I  am  laboring  the  certainty  that  all 
that  is  good  in  it  is  God's  and  must  succeed, 
how  that  certainty  would  drive  the  darkness 
out  of   it!   and  while   I    worked    harder    than 
ever,  my  work  would  have  something  of  the 
calmness  with  which  He  labors  always.    .   .   . 

To  every  poor  sufferer,  to  every  discouraged 
worker,  to  every  man  who  cannot  think  much 
of  himself  and  yet  is  too  brave  to  despair,  this 
is  the  courage  that  the  gospel  gives.  Not 
what  you  can  do,  but  what  He  can  do  in  you; 
not  what  you  are,  but  what  you  can  help  men 
to  see  that  He  is— that  is  the  power  by  which 
you  are  to  work. 

VII.  49,  53- 


Lord,  Thou  wilt  ordain  peace  for  us  ;  for  Thou 
also  hast  wrought  all  our  works  in  us. 

Is.  xxvi.  12. 


i6o  JUNE    9. 


We  see  but  half  the  causes  of  our  deeds, 
Seeking  them  wholly  in  the  outer  life, 
And  heedless  of  the  encircling  spirit-world, 
Which,  though  unseen,  is  felt,  and  sows  in  us 
All  germs  of  pure  and  world-wide  purposes. 
James  Russell  Lowell. 

OH,  there  are  households  among  you  where 
some  son  or  daughter  who  is  dead  is 
stronger  in  the  shaping  of  the  daily  life  than 
any  of  the  men  and  women  who  are  still  alive. 
His  character  is  at  once  a  standard  and  an  in- 
spiration, .  .  .  To  say  that  he  is  not  with  you 
is  to  make  companionship  altogether  a  phys- 
ical, not  at  all  a  spiritual  thing.  To  say  that 
he  is  absent  from  you,  and  that  the  neighbor 
of  whom  you  know  nothing,  for  whom  you 
care  nothing  and  who  cares  nothing  for  you, 
is  present  with  you,  is  to  confuse  all  thoughts 
of  neighborhood,  to  put  the  false  for  the  true, 
the  superficial  for  the  deep. 

This  is  the  difference  of  men — those  whose 
power  stops  with  their  death,  and  those  whose 
power  really  opens  into  its  true  richness  when 
they  die.  The  first  sort  of  men  have  mechan- 
ical power.  The  second  sort  of  men  have 
spiritual  power.  And  the  final  test  and  witness 
of  spiritual  force  is  seen  in  the  ability  to  cast  the 
bodily  life  away  and  yet  continue  to  give  help 
and  courage  and  wisdom  to  those  who  see  us 
no  longer;  to  be,  like  Christ,  the  helper  of 
men's  souls  even  from  beyond  the  grave. 

VII.  14,  15. 


JUNE    lo.  i6i 


Thou  shalt  hide  the?n  in  the  secret  of  Thy  pres- 
ence from  the  strife  of  tongues. — Ps.  xxi.  20. 

WE  believe  in  Jesus  and  try  to  live  with 
Him.  How  is  it  that  a  flippant  toss  of 
skeptical  smartness  about  Him,  or  a  sneer  at 
our  folly  in  making  Him  our  Master,  lays  hold 
of  and  stings  us  so,  sends  us  home  anxious, 
puzzled,  and  worried  ?  We  are  not  wholly 
hidden  from  the  strife  of  tongues.  It  must 
be  that  we  are  not  completely  in  the  secret  of 
His  presence.  We  are  not  there  constantly 
enough.  There  are  moments,  times  when  we 
are  praying,  times  when  in  sorrow  His  sympa- 
thy is  like  life  to  us,  when  there  is  not  the 
tongue  so  rude  and  bitter  that  it  could  ruffle 
the  rest  of  our  souls  in  Him;  times  when 
nothing  that  man  could  say  would  frighten  or 
depress  us.  At  such  times  we  learn  what  it 
is  to  be  thoroughly  with  Him,  and  understand 
what  a  guarded  and  safe  life  it  must  be  to  be 
hidden  there  always. 

I.  88. 


Wisest   of   spirits   that   spirit    which    dwelleth 
apart 
Hid  in  the  presence  of  God  for  a  chapel  and 
nest. 
Sending  a   wish   and   a  will  and  a  passionate 
heart 
Over  the  eddy  of    life   to  that  Presence  in 

rest : 
Seated  alone  and  in  peace  till  God  bids  it 
arise. 

Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


i62  JUNE    II. 


And  they  sent  forth  BarnabaSy  .  .  .  JVho, 
when  he  ca7ne,  .  .  .  exhorted  them  all,  that  with 
purpose  of  heart  they  should  cleave  unto  the  Lord. 

Acts  xi,  22,  23. 

WHEN  a  man  gathers  up  his  life  and  goes 
out  simply  to  spend  it  all  in  telling  the 
children  of  God  who  never  heard  it  from  any- 
other  lips  than  his  that  their  Father  is  their 
Father;  when  all  that  he  has  known  of  Christ 
is  simply  turned  into  so  much  force  by  which 
the  tidings  of  their  sonship  is  to  be  driven 
home  to  hearts  that  do  not  easily  receive  so 
vast  a  truth;  to  that  man  certainly  the  idea 
has  become  a  master  and  a  king,  as  it  has  not 
to  us.  Belief  is  power.  By  the  quantity  of 
power  I  may  know  the  quantity  of  belief.  He 
is  the  true  idealist,  not  who  possesses  ideas, 
but  whom  ideas  possess;  not  the  man  whose 
life  wears  its  ideas  as  ornamental  jewels,  but 
the  man  whose  ideas  shape  his  life  like  plastic 
clay.  And  so  the  true  Christian  idealist  is  he 
whose  conception  of  man  as  the  redeemed 
child  of  God  has  taken  all  his  life  and  moulded 
it  in  new  shapes,  planted  it  in  new  places,  so 
filled  and  inspired  it  that,  like  the  Spirit  of 
God  in  Elijah,  it  has  taken  it  up  and  carried  it 
where  it  never  would  have  chosen  to  go  of  its 
own  lower  will.  II.  176. 

Should  He  need  a  goodly  tree 
For  the  healing  of  the  nations, 

He  will  make  it  grow;  if  not, 

Never  yet  His  love  forgot 

Human  love  and  faith  and  patience. 
Dinah  Muloch  Craik. 


JUNE    12.  163 


Serving  the  Lord  with  all  hu7Jiility. 

Acts  xx.  19. 

TTOW  very  rare  it  is  to  find  an  exceedingly 
^  ^  useful  and  hard-working  man  whose  en- 
ergy and  devotion  are  not  tainted  by  self-sat- 
isfaction! But  here,  if  all  we  do  is  but  to 
make  ourselves  channels  through  which  the 
power  of  God  shall  flow;  if  when  a  man  stands 
up  and  calls  a  whole  city  out  of  corruptness, 
or  a  whole  race  out  of  slavery,  he  is  deeply 
and  genuinely  conscious  that  it  is  not  he  that 
speaks,  but  God  (as  Jesus,  you  remember,  told 
His  disciples  it  should  be  with  them),  then 
that  is  won  which  is  so  rare  in  the  great  work- 
ers (or  in  little  ones  either):  all  self-satisfac- 
tion disappears.  The  man  is  lost  in  the  cause; 
nay,  the  cause  itself  is  lost  in  joy  that  God, 
whom    to    know    is    life,    has    made    Himself 

hereby  a  little  more  known  to  men. 

VII.  49. 

Lord,  give  me  light  to  do  Thy  work; 

For  only.  Lord,  from  Thee 
Can  come  the  light  by  which  these  eyes 

The  way  of  work  can  see 

The  work  is  Thine,  not  mine,  O  Lord, 

It  is  Thy  race  we  run; 
Give  light!   and  then  shall  all  I  do 

Be  well  and  truly  done. 

HORATIUS    BONAR. 


i64  JUNE    13. 


Awful  in  unity, 
O  God,  we  worship  Thee, 
More  simply  One,  because  supremely  Three! 

Faber. 

WHEN  we  preach  the  Fatherhood  of  God 
we  preach  His  divinity;  when  we  point 
to  Christ  the  perfect  Saviour,  it  is  a  Divine 
Redeemer  that  we  declare;  and  when  we  plead 
with  men  to  hear  the  voice  and  yield  to  the 
persuasions  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  Comforter 
into  whose  comfort  we  invite  them  is  Divine. 
The  divinity  of  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost, 
this  is  our  Gospel.  By  this  Gospel  we  look 
for  salvation.  It  is  a  Gospel  to  be  used,  to  be 
believed  in,  and  to  be  lived  by;  not  merely  to 
be  kept  and  admired  and  discussed  and  ex- 
plained. 

I.   228. 

If  a  man  does  believe  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity,  he  ought  to  rejoice  and  glory  in  his 
faith  as  the  enrichment  of  his  life.  Not  as 
a  burden  on  his  back,  but  as  wings  on  his 
shoulders,  he  ought  to  carry  his  belief.  To 
cease  to  believe  it  would  be,  not  welcome  lib- 
erty, but  incalculable  loss.  For  a  new  soul  to 
come  to  believe  it  is  not,  as  men  have  often 
foolishly  talked,  the  putting  out  into  a  sea  all 
dark  with  mists  and  fogs.  It  is  the  entrance 
into  a  luxuriant  land  where  all  life  lives  at 
its  fullest,  where  nature  opens  her  most  lavish 
bounty,  and  where  man  has  the  consummate 
opportunity  to  be  and  do  his  best. 

VII.  334. 


JUNE    14.  165 


NOTHING  could  be  more  misleading  than 
...  to  talk  about  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  as  if  it  claimed  to  be  the  solution,  the 
dissipation,  of  the  mystery  of  God.  I  say 
"God"  to  the  heathen  who  has  gone  so  far 
as  to  believe  that  there  is  one  God  and  not 
many  gods  in  the  universe;  and  he  gazes  into 
the  darkness  of  the  great  idea  and  says:  "  I 
do  not  know  what  God  is.  A  million  questions 
come  buffeting  me  like  bats  out  of  the  darkness 
the  moment  that  I  dare  even  to  turn  my  face 
that  way.  Let  me  hear  His  commandments 
and  go  and  do  them.  For  Himself  I  dare  not 
even  ask  what  He  is. ' '  That  is  the  mystery  of 
darkness.  .  .  .  Then  I  say  "God"  to  the 
Christian  and  he  looks  up  and  says:  "Yes,  I 
know;  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit;  my  Father, 
my  Brother,  my  inspiring  Friend.  I  know 
Him,  what  He  is,  for  He  has  shown  Himself 
to  me."  But  with  each  word.  Father,  Brother, 
Friend,  there  come  flocking  new  questions,  not 
like  bats  out  of  the  darkness,  but  like  sun- 
beams out  of  the  light,  bewildering  the  be- 
lieving soul  with  guesses  and  insoluble  sugges- 
tions and  intangible  visions  of  the  love,  the 
truth,  the  glory  of  God,  which  were  impossi- 
ble until  this  clothing  by  God  of  Himself  with 
radiance  in  Christ  had  come.  That  is  the 
mystery  of  light. 

II.  312. 

O  Blessed  Trinity! 
In  the  deep  darkness  of  prayer's  stillest  night 
We  worship  Thee  blinded  with  light! 

Faber. 


i66  JUNE    15. 


Who  cove  rest  Thyself  with  light  as  with  a  gar- 
me?it. — Ps.  civ.  2. 

WITH  all  deep  things  the  deeper  light 
brings  new  mysteriousness.  The  mys- 
tery of  light  is  the  privilege  and  prerogative 
of  the  profoundest  things.  The  shallow  things 
are  capable  only. of  the  mystery  of  darkness. 
Of  that  all  things  are  capable.  Nothing  is  so 
thin,  so  light,  so  small,  that  if  you  cover  it 
with  clouds  and  hide  it  in  half-lights  it  will  not 
seem  mysterious.  But  the  most  genuine  and 
profound  things  you  may  bring  forth  into  the 
fullest  light,  and  let  the  sunshine  bathe  them 
through  and  through,  and  in  them  there  will 
open  ever  new  wonders  of  mysteriousness.  The 
mystery  of  light  belongs  to  them.  And  how 
then  must  it  be  with  God,  the  Being  of  all 
beings,  the  Being  who  is  Himself  essential 
Being,  out  of  whom  all  other  beings  spring  and 
from  whom  they  are  continually  fed  ?  Surely 
in  Him  the  law  which  we  have  been  tracing 
must  find  its  consummation.  Surely  of  Him 
it  must  be  supremely  true  that  the  more  we 
know  of  Him,  the  more  He  shows  Himself  to 
us,  the  more  mysterious  He  must  forever  be. 
The  mystery  of  light  must  be  complete  in  Him. 

II.  309. 

The  subtlest  and  profoundest  of  men  can- 
not explain  mysteries;  the  simplest  person 
can  appropriate  and  exult  in  them. 

Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


JUNE    i6.  167 


Atid  the  four  and  twenty  elders  fall  down  before 
him  that  sat  on  the  throne^  and  worship  Him  that 
liveth  for  ever  and  ever,  and  cast  their  crowns  be- 
fore the  throne. — Rev.  iv.  10. 

ONLY  those  who  have  crowns  to  cast  can 
do  true  homage  before  His  throne.  .  .  . 
Only  those  who  are  kingly  themselves  can 
properly  honor  the  kingliest.  .  .  .  Men  are 
measured  by  their  reverences.  All  human  life 
is  like  the  annual  procession  of  the  Jews, 
marching  up  to  Jerusalem,  to  the  Holy  City. 
The  nearer  we  are  to  that  place  of  supreme 
adoration,  the  nearer  the  purpose  of  our  life 
is  fulfilled.  What  do  you  adore,  what  do  you 
really  reverence  and  respect  ?  is  the  real  test 
question  of  your  life.  In  an  age  which  makes 
too  little'  of  reverence,  let  us  not  dare  to  let 
drop  the  truth  that  only  that  which  is  high  can 
worship  the  highest,  and  so  covet  as  the  best 
crown  of  our  existence  the  power  so  to  know 
and  feel  that  we  can  genuinely  worship  God. 

VI.  38,  44,  45. 

It  is  life 
From  self-enfranchised,  opening  every  vein 
To  let  in  glory  from  above,  and  give 
What  we  receive  in  fragrance,  color,  fruit, — 
Life,  which  is  Heaven's:  ourselves  dead  mat- 
ter, else. 

Lucy  Larcom. 


i68  JUNE    17. 


SO  long  as  a  man  is  living  for  himself  and 
honoring  himself,  there  is  an  association, 
however  remote  it  may  be,  with  all  the  lowest 
forms  of  selfishness  in  which  men  have  lived; 
but  the  moment  a  man  begins  to  live  in  genu- 
ine adoration  of  the  absolute  good,  and  wor- 
ship God,  he  parts  company  from  all  these 
lower  orders  of  human  life.  .  .  .  When  you 
say  to  God,  "  O  God,  take  me,  for  the  high- 
est thing  that  I  can  do  with  myself  is  to  give 
myself  to  Thee,".  .  .  you  sweep  into  the  cur- 
rent of  the  best,  the  holiest,  and  the  most 
richly  human  of  our  humanity,  which  in  every 
age  has  dedicated  itself  to  God.  The  worship- 
pers of  all  the  world — the  Jew,  the  Greek,  the 
Hindu,  the  Christian  in  all  his  various  cultures, 
take  you  for  their  brother.  .  .  .  You  are  never 
in  such  company  as  when  you  are  before  God's 
throne  offering  Him  your  brightest  and  most 
precious.  VI.  44,  45. 

Be  of  good  cheer,  brave  spirit;  steadfastly 
Serve  that  low  whisper  thou  hast  served;  for 

know 
God  hath  a  select  family  of  sons 
Now  scattered  wide  through  earth,   .   .   . 
Who  are  thy  spiritual  kindred. 
And  Time,  who  keeps  God's  word,  brings  on 

the  day 
To    seal   the   marriage    of    these    minds    with 

thine. 
.   .   .   Ye  shall  be 
The  salt  of    all    the  elements,    world    of  the 

world. 

Emerson. 


JUNE    i8.  169 


r\l /HEN]  ground  is  trodden  hard,  it  is  the 
L  VV  very  substance  of  the  ground  that  lies 
impenetrable  and  catches  the  seed,  and  will 
not  let  it  in  and  claim  the  soil  and  do  its  fruit- 
ful work.  ,  .  .  This  is  the  notion  of  the  Crust. 
It  is  not  a  foreign  material;  but  the  thing 
itself,  grown  hard  and  rigid,  shuts  the  soft  and 
tender  and  receptive  portions  of  the  thing 
away.  .  .  .  Thus  out  of  the  very  substance 
of  a  man's  life,  out  of  the  very  stuff  of  what 
he  is  and  does,  comes  the  hindrance  which 
binds  itself  about  his  being,  and  will  not  let 
the  better  influences  out.  .  .  .  That  self-made 
barrier  must  be  broken  up,  must  be  restored 
to  its  first  condition  and  become  again  part  of 
the  substance  out  of  which  it  was  evolved,  be- 
fore the  life  can  be  fed  with  the  dew  of  first 
principles  and  the  rain  of  the  immediate  de- 
scent of  God. 

What  is  the  crust  upon  your  life  that  keeps 
out  holy  influences  ? 

VI.  155,  156. 


This  crust  of  selfishness  and  sin 
That  shuts  my  better  self  within, — 
If  Thou  canst  make  it  soft  and  fine. 
So  bloom  and  fruitage  there  may  shine 
In  answer  to  Thy  dew  and  sun, 
I  can  but  say:   Thy  will  be  done! 
For  where  the  deepest  cuts  Thy  plough, 
And  all  is  bare  and  broken  now, 
Faith  sees  the  tender  grain-rows  spring, 
The  teeming  valleys  laugh  and  sing! 

J.  L.  M.  W. 


lyo  JUNE    19. 


IF,  as  we  profess  to  believe,  all  right  is  for- 
ever antagonistic  to  all  wrong,  then  what 
a  lesson  there  is  to  us  in  the  steadfast  law  and 
faithfulness  of  all  the  universe  around  us. 
How  each  day  coming  to  its  task  of  crowding 
labors,  each  night  bringing  in  its  blessed  peace 
of  sleep  in  obedience  to  the  old  command  of 
Genesis,  brings  with  it  a  remonstrance  against 
our  faint-heartedness  and  constant  wavering 
of  loyalty  and  truth.  The  stars  in  their  courses 
fight  against  us  as  they  fought  against  Sisera. 
The  duty  that  they  are  doing  cries  shame  on 
the  duty  that  we  are  leaving  undone  every 
day.  .  .  .  While  this  morning's  sunrise  is  rosy 
with  the  memory  of  last  night's  sunset,  while 
noon  looks  longingly  down  the  eastern  sky 
that  it  has  travelled,  and  fondly  onward  to  the 
night  toward  which  it  hurries,  while  month 
links  in  with  month,  and  season  works  with 
season,  and  year  joins  hand  with  year  in  the 
long  labor  of  the  world's  hard  life,  there  is  a 
lesson  for  us  all  to  learn  of  the  unity  and  the 
harmony  of  our  existence.  Let  us  take  the 
lesson,  and  with  it  in  our  hearts  go  out  to  be 
more  tolerant,  more  kindly,  and  more  true  in 
our  dealings  with  our  fellow-men.  ...  It  is 
sympathy,  it  is  love,  it  is  healthy  interest  in 
one  another,  that  all  these  great  teachers  make 
their  lesson. 

X.  243. 

So  links  more  subtle  and  more  fine 
Bind  every  other  soul  to  thine 
In  one  great  Brotherhood  divine. 

Adelaide  A.  Procter. 


JUNE    20.  171 


The  Father  sent  the  Son  to  be  the  Saviour  of 
the  world. — i  John  iv.  14. 

AND  when  an  earnest  soul  accepts  this  ever- 
lasting Christ,  is  there  not  a  new  glory 
in  his  salvation  when  he  thinks  that  it  has  been 
from  everlasting?  He  looks  back,  and  lo,  the 
Saviour  was  his  Saviour  before  the  worlds 
were  made!  The  covenant  to  which  he  clings 
had  its  sublime  conditions  written  in  the  very- 
constitution  of  the  Godhead.  It  was  not 
spoken  first  on  Calvary;  nay,  it  did  not  begin 
when  it  was  told  to  David,  or  to  Moses,  or  to 
poor  Adam  crushed  into  the  dust  with  his  new 
sinfulness  outside  the  garden-gate.  Before 
them  all,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  Deity,  was 
written  the  prophecy  that  if  ever  in  the  un- 
folding of  the  ages  one  poor  human  soul  like 
mine  should  need  salvation,  the  eternal  Christ, 
bringing  His  credential  of  Eternal  Human 
Brotherhood,  should  come  to  save  it.  The  ages 
rolled  along;  my  soul  was  born,  and  sinned; 
it  cried  out  to  be  saved,  and  lo,  Christ  came! 
What  is  there  left  for  me  to  do  but  cling  to 
Him  with  a  love  strong  as  His  precious  promi- 
ises  and  a  faith  firm  as  His  Everlasting  Sav- 
iourship  ? 

VI.  319- 

Except  the  Cross,  and  Him  who  died 
Upon  it,  now  in  earth  or  heaven 
What  own  I,  claim  I  ?     Now  below 
I  seek  no  farther;  here  is  woe 
Assuaged  forever:   now  above 
I  look  no  longer;  here  is  love! 

Dora  Greenwell. 


172  JUNE    21, 


He  that  soweth  to  the  Spirit  shall  of  the  Spirit 
reap  ever  las  ti?ig  life. — Gal.  vi.  8. 

CHRIST  had  His  word  of  encouragement 
and  strength  to  say  to  every  soldier  in 
His  army  and  to  every  worker  at  His  work. 
.  .  .  Not  merely  scholars  in  their  studies,  not 
merely  missionaries  in  their  martyrdoms,  not 
merely  saints  in  their  closed  closets,  but  every 
working  man  and  woman  everywhere, — they 
are  all  His.  The  spirit  which  proceeds  from 
Him  may  pour  through  the  whole  mass  and 
find  out  every  particle,  and  give  to  each  an 
impetus  towards  its  own  next  higher  stage  of 
life,  and  so  bear  the  whole  along  together  to- 
wards the  completion  of  each  man  and  the 
completion  of  the  whole  social  and  business 
life,  and  politics  and  education,  and  then,  as 
the  crown  of  them  all,  Religion.  "That  is 
not  first  which  is  Spiritual,  but  that  which  is 
Natural;  and  afterward  that  which  is  Spirit- 
ual! "  But  they  are  all  God's;  and  to  make 
each  instinct  with  what  measure  of  His  life  it 
is  capable  of  containing — that  is  to  build  them 
all  into  a  flight  of  shining  stairs,  sweeping 
upward  into  even  clearer  and  intenser  light, 
until  he  who  mounts  to  the  full  summit  stands 
by  the  altar  of  God's  unclouded  presence  and 
realizes  the  blessedness  of  perfect  Communion 
with  Him. 

VI.  258. 


J^or  we  are  laborers  together  with  God. 

I  Cor.  : 


JUNE    22.  173 


Life  is  too  short  to  waste 
In  critic  peep  or  cynic  bark, 

Quarrel  or  reprimand, — 
'Twill  soon  be  dark: 

Up!  mind  thine  own  aim,  and 

God  speed  the  mark!  Emerson. 

MEN  complain  that  God  does  not  do  this 
and  that  and  the  other  thing  for  them, 
which  He  never  undertook  to  do.  They  say, 
"He  does  not  make  me  rich.  He  does  not 
fill  my  life  with  friendships."  So  they  flutter 
about  with  their  complainings  as  a  bird  will 
sweep  this  way  and  that,  doubtful  and  wan- 
dering and  tempted  on  every  side.  But  as  at 
last  the  bird  catches  sight  of  the  home  where 
it  belongs,  though  very  far  away,  and  all  its 
flutterings  cease,  and  setting  itself  straight 
towards  that,  it  steadies  itself  and  seeks  it 
without  a  single  turn  aside;  so  by  and  by  one 
of  these  wanderers  among  many  hopes  discov- 
ers far  away  the  hope,  the  one  only  hope,  for 
which  God  made  him,  and  forgetting  every- 
thing else  thenceforth  gives  himself  to  that, 
to  serve  God  and  by  serving  Him  to  grow  into 
His  goodness.  I.  312. 

I  go  to  prove  my  soul ! 
I  see  my  way  as  birds  their  trackless  way;  I 

shall  arrive!     What  time,  what  circuit, 
I  ask  not;  but  .   .   . 
In   some   good  time — His  good  time — I  shall 

arrive: 
He    guides    me    and  the    bird.      In   His  good 

t'me!  Browning. 


174  JUNE    23. 


A  central  peace  subsisting  at  the  heart 
Of  endless  agitation.  Wordsworth. 

BUT  motion  without  fatigue,  or  waste,  or 
need  of  refreshment  or  repair,  that  is 
the  finished  idea  of  Peace.  We  talk  about  the 
"  Peace  of  God."  Is  not  this  really  the  con- 
ception which,  carried  to  its  highest,  reaches 
that  sublime  idea  ?  "  My  father  worketh  hith- 
erto and  I  work,"  said  Jesus.  It  is  no  Orien- 
tal apathy.  The  Christian  thought  of  God  is 
full  of  interest,  zeal,  emotion,  action,  only  it 
is  always  perfectly  balanced  with  its  surround- 
ings, since  its  surroundings  are  the  utterance 
and  creation  of  itself.  God  and  the  universe 
in  their  unbroken  harmony.  The  universe 
never  asking  anything  of  God  which  God  can- 
not do.  God  having  no  power  or  affection 
which  the  universe  cannot  utter.  That  is  the 
Perfect  Peace.  To  match  that  consummate 
Peace  in  our  lower  little  sphere,  to  be  to  our 
world  as  God  is  to  His,  to  work  as  perpetually 
and  yet  as  calmly  and  so  effectively  as  He 
works;  that  is  the  real  thing  that  we  pray  for 
when  we  ask  for  one  another  the  Peace  of 
God.  VI.  189. 

Roll  round,  strange  years;  swift  seasons,  come 
and  go; 
Ye  leave  upon  us  but  an  outward  sign; 
Ye  cannot  touch  the  inward  and  divine, 
Which  God  alone  does  know; 
There,  sealed  till  summers,  winters,  all  shall 

cease, 
In  His  deep  peace.  Dinah  Muloch  Craik. 


JUNE    24.  175 


He  was  not  that  Light,  but  was  sent  to  bear  wit- 
ness of  that  Light. — John  i.  8. 

TO  look  different  from  other  people,  to  wear 
other  clothes,  to  be  somehow  eccentric, 
.  .  .  this  is  the  most  superficial  form  of  the 
desire  for  originality.  .  .  .  To  start  some  new 
idea,  to  send  forth  something  that  shall  show 
our  fellows  that  this  machinery  within  us  does 
not  work  just  the  same  with  all  the  mental 
machinery  in  all  the  world — this  is  the  higher 
ambition  of  a  higher  man.  Different  from 
both  of  them  is  that  religious  consciousness 
which  the  devout  man  has  that  God  made  him 
for  a  special  purpose,  for  a  special  exhibition 
of  himself;  and  so  the  desire  to  be  himself 
completely,  in  order  that  no  purpose  which 
God  had  in  his  creation  may  fail  through  his 
being  distorted  or  obscured.  This  is  a  desire 
for  the  divine  originality  of  character  which  God 
intended.  .  .  .  Many  men  try  to  be  John 
the  Baptists  by  wearing  the  skins  and  eating 
the  locusts  and  wild  honey.  Others  would  be 
John  the  Baptists  by  preaching  strange  doc- 
trines. Very  few  seek  to  live  the  life  that  he 
lived  by  recognizing  that  they  are  sent  into  the 
world,  not  to  shine  themselves,  but  merely  by 
some  way  of  their  own  to  bear  witness  of  the 
Light  of  God.  VII.  41. 

O  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  Who  didst  make  Thy  forerunner, 
Saint  John  Baptist,  to  be  as  a  bright  light  in  Thy  temple  ; 
Grant  that  we  may  ever  shine  in  Thy  Church,  with  the 
ardor  of  faith,  in  works  of  charity,  and  in  true  humility  ; 
through  Thy  mercy,  O  Christ  our  God,  Who,  with  the 
Father  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  livest  and  reignest,  ever  one 
God,  world  without  end.     Amen. — Ancient  Collects. 


176  JUNE    25, 


THERE  are  two  persons  to  whom  life  is 
pretty  clear,  the  man  who  does  not  think 
or  feel  at  all,  and  the  man  who  thinks  and  feels 
very  deeply.  .  .  .  The  sluggish  creature  who 
just  runs  his  little  fragment  of  the  universe 
and  asks  no  questions  further  is  troubled  by 
no  doubts.  The  finished  soul  who  sees  with 
God's  eyes  the  great  moral  laws  which  govern 
all  God's  worlds,  he,  too,  may  rest  in  peace. 
Between  the  two  the  great  mass  of  men,  see- 
ing the  difficulties,  but  not  seeing  their  solu- 
tions, live  in  disquietude  and  questionings. 
And  when  one  has  once  outgrown  the  first 
repose  of  ignorance  and  thoughtlessness,  he 
never  can  go  back  to  it — there  is  no  hope  for 
him  except  to  go  on  to  the  higher  repose  of 
faith  and  knowledge  and  sympathy  with  God. 

VI.  112. 

Therefore  to  whom  turn   I  but  to  Thee,  the 
ineffable  Name  ? 
Builder  and  maker.    Thou,    of    houses    not 
made  with  hands! 
What,  have  fear  of    Thee   who   art    ever   the 
same  ? 
Doubt  that  Thy  power  can  fill  the  heart  that 
Thy  power  expands  ? 
There  shall  never   be  one  lost  good!     What 
was,  shall  live  as  before, 
The  evil  is  null,  is  nought,  is  silence  imply- 
ing sound: 
What  was  good  shall  be  good,  with,  for  evil, 

so  much  good  more; 
On  the  earth,  the  broken  arcs;  in  the  heaven, 
the  perfect  round. 

Browning. 


JUNE    26.  177 


A  man  should  rejoice  hi  his  oivn  works ^  for  that 
is  his  portion. — Eccles.  iii.  22. 

IT  is  the  mere  smatterer  in  any  profession 
who  thinks  it  is  slight  and  is  contemptuous 
about  it.  It  is  a  universal  rule  that  he  is  a 
poor  workman  who  does  not  honor  and  respect 
his  work.  A  man  has  no  right  to  be  doing 
any  work  which,  as  he  grows  greater  within  it, 
does  not  offer  him  new  views  of  itself  to  call 
out  an  ever-increasing  reverence  and  honor. 
And  in  all  the  good  occupations  of  life  (one 
would  like  to  impress  it  upon  every  young 
merchant,  young  mechanic,  and  young  student 
whom  he  can  speak  to)  a  man's  best  proof  of 
growing  greatness  in  himself  is  a  growing  per- 
ception of    the  greatness   and   beauty   of    his 

work. 

VI.  40. 

And  everywhere,  here  and  always, 

If  we  would  but  open  our  eyes. 
We  should  find,   through    these  beaten   foot- 
paths. 

Our  way  into  Paradise. 

Dull  earth  would  be  dull  no  longer, 

The  clod  would  sparkle  a  gem; 
And  our  hands,  at  their  commonest  labor, 

Would  be  building  Jerusalem. 

Lucy  Larcom. 


178  JUNE    27. 


Hereby  we  kno7V  that  He  abideth  in  tis,  by  the 
Spirit  which  He  hath  given  us. — i  John  iii.  24. 

The  bra?tch  cannot  bear  fruit  of  itself  except  it 
abide  in  the  Vine. — John  xv.  4. 

IN  this  truth  of  the  believer's  abiding  in 
Christ,  there  are  two  notions  involved — of 
Permanence  and  of  Repose.  .  .  .  There  is  a 
new  tranquillity  which  is  not  stagnation,  but 
assurance,  when  a  life  thus  enters  into  Christ. 
It  is  like  the  hushing  of  a  million  babbling, 
chattering  mountain  streams  as  t'hey  approach 
the  sea  and  fill  themselves  with  its  deep  pur- 
poses. It  is  like  the  steadying  of  a  lost  bird's 
quivering  wings  when  it  at  last  sees  the  nest 
and  quiets  itself  with  the  certainty  of  reaching 
it,  and  settles  smoothly  down  on  level  pinions 
to  sweep  unswervingly  towards  it.  It  is  like 
these  to  see  the  calm  of  a  restless  soul  that 
discovers  Christ  and  rests  its  tired  wings  upon 
the  atmosphere  of  His  truth,  and  so  abides  in 
Him  as  it  goes  on  towards  Him. 

VI.  299,  300. 


O  my  soul,  how  noble  thou  art, 

What  a  wonderful  power  lies  hid  in  thee! 

For  thou  canst  not  rest  until  thou  attain  the 

highest  good. 
And  find  out  the  ultimate  end; 
Which  being  recognized  and  found, 
Thy  restlessness  shall  cease. 

Thomas  A  Kempis. 


JUNE    28.  179 


We  know  that  we  have  passed  from  death  unto 
life  because  we  love  the  brethren. — c  John  iii.  14. 

THAT  man  ought  to  distrust  his  Christianity- 
very  deeply  who  finds  that  when  he  has 
become  a  Christian  he  takes  no  more  large 
and  hopeful  and  charitable  view  of  his  fellow- 
men  and  their  lives  than  he  did  before.  The 
glory  of  a  revealed  immortality  is  that  it  ex- 
alts into  struggle  for  a  purpose  that  which 
seemed  to  be  only  the  restless  tossing  and 
heaving  of  mere  discontent  .  .  .  poor  fitful 
efforts  after  goodness,  broken  and  distracted; 
a  mere  unrest  and  moral  turmoil  everywhere. 
What  can  interpret  it  except  the  great  opening 
of  an  eternity,  and  the  sight  of  the  power  of 
that  eternity  working  even  here  ?  With  that 
in  view,  we  come  to  a  large  and  tolerant  sus- 
pense of  judgment  that  is  good  for  us.  Who 
can  say  how  much  of  this  which  seems  pur- 
poseless restlessness  is  really  purposeful  strug- 
gle? The  wild,  confused  waves  are  going 
somewhere.  We  grow  to  a  sure  conviction 
that  very  much  of  what  seems  bad  is  only  good 
unformed  and  struggling  under  the  power  of 
the  resurrection  to  its  full  development  and 
exhibition. 

VII.  281,  282. 

Only  add 
Deeds  to  thy  knowledge  answerable;  add  faith, 
Add  virtue,  patience,  temperance;  add  love. 
By  name  to  come  called  charity,  the  soul 
Of  all  the  rest:  then  wilt  thou  .   .   .   possess 
A  Paradise  within  thee. 

Milton. 


i8o  JUNE    29. 


SIMON  called  Peter  left  his  net  and  followed 
Jesus.  He  went  out  of  the  old  life  into 
the  untried  new  life,  following  this  Master.  He 
went  out  to  a  friendship  and  a  work  that  were 
to  fill  his  days  with  delight  and  inspiration. 
He  went  to  new  thoughts,  new  hopes,  new 
duties.  But  did  he  go  to  nothing  else?  As 
he  turns  and  follows  Jesus  does  he  not  go  bur- 
dened with  new  dangej's  which  he  did  not  have 
before  ?  .  .  .  If  from  that  moment  of  his 
choice  it  is  possible  for  him  to  acknowledge 
Christ,  is  it  not  possible  also  to  deny  Him  ? 

Does  not  such  a  truth  as  this,  when  it  is  un- 
derstood and  deeply  felt,  make  men  reject  the 
privileges  which  bring  such  dangers  with 
them  ?  Happily  it  is  not  so  .  .  .  commonly 
the  scale  of  men's  construction  is  loftier  than 
that.  Commonly  the  man  who  is  man  enough 
to  see  this  truth  is  man  enough  to  meet  it.  It 
fills  him  with  a  soberness  which  is  energy  and 
not  despair.  And  besides,  men  see  that  it  is 
a  danger  which  they  can7iot  shirk.  To  avoid 
privilege  in  order  to  escape  the  chance  of  sin 
which  it  brings  with  it  is  essentially  to  commit 
the  very  sin  of  which  we  are  afraid.  For 
Peter  to  refuse  to  follow  Jesus  because  he  sees 
the  denial  looming  in  the  distance  is  really 
only  to  anticipate  his  sin  and  to  deny  his  Mas- 
ter now, 

VII.  114,  115. 


Fear  ballasts  hope,  hope  buoys  up  fear, 
And  both  befit  us  here. 

Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


JUNE   30.  181 


Yea,  Lord,  Thou  knowest  that  I  love  Thee. 

John  xxi.  15. 

THE  true  sign   of  forgiveness  is  not  some 
mysterious   signal   waved   from  the  sky; 
not  some  obscure  emotion  hunted  out  in  your 
heart;  not  some  stray  text  culled  out  of  your 
Bible;    certainly    not    some    word    of    mortal 
priest' telling  you  that  your  satisfaction  is  com- 
plete      The   soul   full   of  responsive  love  to 
Christ,   and   ready,    longing,  hungry  to  serve 
Him    is  its  own  sign  of  forgiveness.   ...      I 
think  that  with  all  we  know  of  the  divme  heart 
of  Jesus  He  would  far  rather  see  a  soul  trust 
Him  too  much,   if  that  is  possible,  than  trust 
Him   too    little,  which    we    know    is   possible 
enough       When  a  man   who   has  sinned,  and 
who,  like  Simon  Peter,  has  not  a  shadow  or  a 
ghost  of  an  excuse  to  offer  for  his  sin,  has  so 
known  Christ  that  he  never  thinks  of  Him  as 
one  to  be  propitiated,    never    doubts   for    an 
instant  that  if  he  is  forgivable  he  is  forgiven, 
and  so  lets  his  hatred  of  his  old  sin  break  out 
in  an  utterance  of  his  love  for  the  Holy  One, 
and  lets  his  sorrow  for  his  treason  only  show 
itself  in  his  desire  for   loyal   work,  then  that 
poor  sinner's  sin  is  dead  and  gone. 

VII.  127. 

Turn  all  to  love,  poor  soul; 

Be  love  thy  watch  and  ward; 
Be  love  thy  starting-point,  thy  goal. 

And  thy  reward. 

Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


i82  JULY    I. 


Behold^  this  stone  shall  he  a  witness  unto  us  j  for 
it  hath  heard  all  the  words  of  the  Lord. 

Josh.  xxiv.  27. 

THERE  are  always  people  who  are  to  the 
world  they  live  in  what  that  stone  in 
Shechem  was  to  the  nation  in  the  midst  of  which 
it  stood.  Not  voluble  people,  not  people  with 
their  glib  and  ready  judgment  upon  every- 
thing which  goes  on  about  them,  perhaps 
people  who  have  seemed  to  the  world  at  large 
mere  stones;  but  people  who  some  time  in 
their  lives  had  had  the  primary  truth  of  God, 
the  Divinity  of  Righteousness,  spoken  so  into 
their  ears  that  it  has  filled  their  being.  Thence- 
forward they  spoke  that  word  in  all  its  simpli- 
city to  everybody.  All  earnest  struggle  after 
righteousness  feels  their  approval  and  sympa- 
thy, and  counts  it  really  God's.  All  shuffling, 
cowardly  and  wanton  sin  hides  or  hurries 
away  from  their  rebuking  presence.  They 
declare  no  subtleties  and  no  refinements.  They 
simply,  broadly  utter  right  and  wrong.  Such 
people  have  a  noble  place  and  function  in  the 
world.  Men  who  would  not  own  God's  judg- 
ments directly,  own  God's  judgments  as  they 
come  through  them.  They  purify  and  bless 
the  circle,  the  community  in  which  they  live, 
as  that  stone  under  the  oak  at  Shechem  must 
have  seemed  to  purify  and  bless  the  whole 
land  of  Israel.  VI.  263. 

Through  such  souls  .    .   . 
God,  stooping,  shows  sufficient  of  His  light 
For  us  i'  the  dark  to  rise  by. 

Browning. 


JULY    2.  183 

Unto  one  he  gave  five  tale?its,  to  another  tivoy 
and  to  another  one  j  to  every  man  according  to  his 
several  ability. — Matt.  xxv.  15. 

IN  the  life  which  that  parable  describes,  the 
different  talents  of  different  servants  are 
fully  taken  into  the  account.  Duty  is  measured 
by  chance,  and  yet  the  essential  idea  of  duty 
is  never  weakened.  I  am  bound  to  do  less 
than  you,  but  I  am  just  as  severely  bound  to 
do  my  little  as  you  are  to  do  your  much. 
Where  else  could  those  ideas  be  kept  in  perfect 
harmony  and  peace,  neither  of  them  hurting 
the  other,  but  within  the  larger  idea  of  father- 
hood ?  In  what  group  could  the  child  take  his 
little  task,  fitted  to  his  little  hands,  and  do  it, 
with  the  entire  conviction  that  he  must  do  it, 
and,  nevertheless,  not  vexed  nor  bewildered  by 
the  sight  of  tasks  a  thousand  times  greater 
than  his  own  being  done  close  by  his  side;  and 
at  the  same  time,  the  great  man,  the  hero,  dedi- 
cate himself  to  his  vast  work  with  no  sense  of 
oppression  nor  injustice,  nor  with  any  feeling 
of  superiority  or  pride, — in  what  group  could 
these  two  faithful  souls  work  on,  in  such  differ- 
ence and  yet  in  such  identity,  but  in  a  family, 
where  every  child  has  his  own  special  duty, 
great  or  small,  clothed  with  the  absoluteness 
of  the  Fatherhood  which  is  over  all  ? 

VIII.  63. 

For  what  is  infinite  must  be  a  home, 

A  shelter  for  the  meanest  life. 
Where  it  is  free  to  reach  its  greatest  growth, 

Far  from  the  touch  of  strife. 

Faber. 


i84  JULY   3. 

'X'HE  more  we  read  the  Psalms,  and  indeed 
^  all  the  Bible,  we  are  impressed  with  the 
remarkable  value  which  belongs  to  the  Holy 
Land  as  representing  not  merely  the  localities 
of  certain  historical  events,  but  also  by  a  higher 
association  the  geography  of  the  spiritual  life 
of  man.  .  .  .  Though  the  historic  land  which 
lies  between  the  Mediterranean  sea  and  the  Asi- 
atic deserts  should  be  blotted  from  the  surface 
of  the  earth  to-morrow,  there  would  be  eter- 
nally a  Holy  Land.  Still  all  over  the  world, 
the  Jordan  would  roll  down  its  rocky  bed  to 
the  Dead  sea;  still  the  hills  would  stand  about 
Jerusalem ;  still  the  desert  would  open  between 
Judea  and  Galilee;  still  Egypt  must  mean 
captivity,  and  the  Red  sea  deliverance,  and 
the  Gilgal  providence,  and  Bethany  domestic 
piety,  and  Calvary  redeeming  love, — although 
the  visible  places  to  which  those  names  belong 
should  cease  to  be  forever.  We  little  know 
how  much  we  owe  to  this  eternal  picture 
drawn  in  the  hearts  of  men,  this  mapped-out 
Palestine  of  the  inner  life. 

VI.  18. 

For  all  of  good  the  past  hath  had 
Remains  to  make  our  own  time  glad — 
Our  common  daily  life  divine, 
And  every  land  a  Palestine. 

Whittier. 


JULY    4.  185 

Flag  of  Freedom  and  Union,  wave! 
Peace  and  order  and  beauty  draw 
Round  thy  symbol  of  Light  and  Law! 

Whittier. 

TESUS  was  a  patriot.  That  sentiment  which 
^  makes  so  much  of  the  poetry  of  the  earth 
— the  love  of  men  for  their  native  land — was 
very  strong  in  His  bosom.  .  .  .  But  why  is 
it  that  His  patriotism  is  a  part  of  His  life  to 
which  we  least  often  turn  ?  It  is  not  only  that 
He  lived  a  larger  life  and  did  a  larger  work, 
which  has  far  outreached  the  Jewish  people 
and  touched  us  with  its  influence.  It  is  the 
constant  predominance  of  the  sonship  to  God 
over  the  sonship  to  David  in  His  conscious- 
ness, making  Him  always  eager  for  the  land 
of  David  because  of  the  interests  of  God 
which  it  enshrined.  This  is  a  distinct  and 
definite  quality  when  it  appears  in  a  man's 
patriotism.  It  makes  his  patriotism  fine  and 
lofty  above  the  measure  of  the  common  patri- 
otic feeling  of  mankind. 

VIII.  131,  132. 

Our  country  hath  a  gospel  of  her  own 
To  preach  and  practise  before  all  the  world, — 
The  freedom  and  divinity  of  man. 
The     glorious     claims     of     human     brother- 
hood,  .   .    . 
And  the  soul's  fealty  to  none  but  God. 

James  Russell  Lowell. 


i86  JULY    5. 

And  be  clothed  with  hu7nility. — i  Pet.  v.  5. 

IT  is  striking  that  almost  without  exception 
the  word  humility,  used  before  the  time  of 
Christ,  is  used  contemptuously  and  rebuk- 
ingly.  It  always  meant  meanness  of  spirit. 
To  be  humble  was  to  be  a  coward.  It 
described  a  cringing  soul.  It  was  a  word  of 
slaves.  Such  is  its  almost  constant  classic  use. 
Where  could  we  find  a  more  striking  instance 
of  the  change  that  the  Christian  religion 
brought  into  the  world,  than  in  the  way  in 
which  it  took  this  disgraceful  word  and  made 
it  honorable  ?  To  be  humble  is  to  have  a  low 
estimation  of  one's  self.  That  was  considered 
shameful  in  the  olden  time.  Nobody  claimed 
it  for  himself.  Nobody  enjoined  it  upon 
another.  You  insulted  a  man  if  you  called 
him  humble.  It  seemed  to  be  inconsistent 
with  that  self-respect  which  is  necessary  to 
any  good  activity.  Christ  came  and  made  the 
despised  quality  the  crowning  grace  of  the 
culture  that  He  inaugurated.  Lo!  the  dis- 
graceful word  became  the  key-word  of  His 
fullest  gospel.  He  redeemed  the  quality,  and 
straightway  the  name  became  honorable.  It 
became  the  ambition  of  all  men  to  wear  it. 
To  call  a  man  humble  was  to  praise  him  now. 
Men  affected  it  if  they  did  not  have  it.  Pride 
began  to  ape  humility  when  humility  was 
made  the  crowning  grace  of  human  life. 

I.  325. 

Christ  was  pleased  Himself  to  be 

Our  Pattern  of  humility  : 

To  show  no  path  of  duty  lies 

Too  low  for  highest  dignities.       J.  L.  M.  W. 


JULY   6.  187 

JESUS  was  never  guarding  himself,  but 
always  invading  the  lives  of  others  with 
His  holiness.  .  .  .  His  life  was  like  an  open 
stream  that  keeps  the  sea  from  flowing  up  into 
it  by  the  eager  force  with  which  it  flows  down 
into  the  sea.  He  was  so  anxious  that  the 
world  should  be  saved,  that  therein  was  His 
salvation  from  the  world.  He  labored  so  to 
make  the  world  pure  that  He  never  even  had 
to  try  to  be  pure  Himself.  Health  issued 
from  Him  so  to  the  sick  who  touched  His 
garments  that  He  was  in  no  danger  of  their 
infection  coming  in  to  Him.  This  was  the 
positiveness  of  His  sinlessness.  He  did  not 
spend  His  life  in  trying  not  to  do  wrong.  He 
was  too  full  of  the  earnest  love  and  longing  to 
do  right, — to  do  His  Father's  will. 

So  we  are  sure  at  once,  and  we  learn  it  cer- 
tainly from  Christ,  that  the  true  spotlessness 
from  the  world  must  come,  not  negatively,  by 
the  garments  being  drawn  back  from  every 
worldly  contact,  but  positively,  by  the  gar- 
ments being  so  essentially,  divinely  pure  that 
they  fling  pollution  off,  as  sunshine,  hurrying 
on   its   mission   to   the  world,  flings   back   the 

darkness  that  tries  to  stop  its  way. 

I.  1S2,  1S4. 

Have  Jesus  in  thy  heart. 

And  thou  wilt  be  preserved  from  all  defilement. 

Thomas  A  Kempis. 


i88  JULY    7. 


Be  ye  glad  and  rejoice  forever  in  that  which  I 
create. — Is.  Ixv.  18. 

IT  means  something  that,  in  the  disorder  of 
thought  and  feeling,  so  many  men  are  flee- 
ing to  the  study  of  orderly  nature.  And  it  is 
rest  and  comfort.  Whatever  men  are  feeling, 
the  seasons  come  and  go.  Whatever  men  are 
doubting,  the  rock  is  firm  under  their  feet,  and 
the  steadfast  stars  pass  in  their  certain  courses 
overhead.  Men  who  dare  count  on  nothing 
else  may  still  count  on  the  tree's  blossoming 
and  the  grape  coloring.  It  is  good  for  a  man 
perplexed  and  lost  among  many  thoughts  to 
come  into  closer  intercourse  with  Nature,  and 
to  learn  her  ways  and  to  catch  her  spirit.  It  is 
no  fancy  to  believe  that  if  the  children  of  this 
generation  are  taught  a  great  deal  more  than 
we  used  to  be  taught  of  nature,  and  the  ways 
of  God  in  nature,  they  will  be  provided  with 
the  material  for  far  healthier,  happier,  and  less 
perplexed  and  anxious  lives  than  most  of  us 
are  living. 

I.  171. 

Nature  .   .   .  can  so  inform 
The  mind  that  is  within  us,  so  impress 
With  quietness  and  beauty,  and  so  feed 
With  lofty  thoughts,  that  neither  evil  tongues, 
Rash  judgments,  nor  the  sneers  of  selfish  men, 
Nor  greetings  where  no  kindness  is,  nor  all 
The  dreary  intercourse  of  daily  life. 
Shall  e'er  prevail  against  us  or  disturb 
Our  cheerful  faith  that  all  which  we  behold 
Is  full  of  blessings. 

Wordsworth. 


JULY   8.  189 


T  SEEM  to  hear  a  certain  sort  of  apologetic 
*  tone  among  men  of  faith,  which  is  not 
good.  .  .  .  The  man  who  trusts  God  some- 
times seems  almost  to  say  to  his  unbelieving 
brother,  "  Forgive  me.  I  am  not  as  strong  as 
you  are.  I  cannot  do  without  this  help.  You 
are  more  strong  and  do  not  need  it.  But  let 
me  keep  it  still."  No  open  foe  of  faith  can 
do  faith  so  much  harm  as  that  kind  of  be- 
liever. ...  If  is  a  sick  man  apologizing  to 
death  because  he  is  not  quite  ready  yet  to  die. 
It  is  the  meagreness  of  health  in  him  that 
prompts  his  poor  apology.  Let  him  grow 
healthier  and  he  begins  to  look  not  down  to 
death  with  apologies,  but  up  to  life  with  hopes 
and  aspirations.  So  let  the  weak  disciple  grow 
more  strong  in  faith,  and  he  will  have  no  longer 
feeble  words  of  shame  and  self-excuse  to  say 
about  his  trust  in  Christ;  only  his  whole  life 
will  grow  one  earnest  prayer  for  an  increase  of 
faith,  as  the  child's  life  is  one  continued  hope 

and  prayer  for  manhood. 

VI.   100. 

Belief's  fire,  once  in  us. 
Makes  of  all  else  mere  stuff  to  show  itself: 
We  penetrate  our  life  with  such  a  glow 
As  fire  lends  to  wood  and  iron. 

Browning. 


I90  JULY    9. 


If  any  man  thinketh  he  is  wise,   .   .  .  let  hi?n 
become  a  fool,  that  he  may  he  wise. 

I  Cor.  iii.  18. 

BEHOLD,  wisdom  is  the  end  of  all!  No 
less  in  the  Bible  and  in  the  Church  than 
in  the  schools.  ...  If  the  Gospel  discredits 
any  of  man's  achievements,  declaring  them  to 
be  incompetent  to  satisfy  the  soul  and  educate 
the  nature,  it  is  always  only  that  it  may  insist 
upon  a  higher  knowledge.  Christ  was  a 
teacher.  Christ  is  a  teacher  forever.  If  He 
declares  that  no  scholastic  culture,  and  no  skill 
in  the  arts  of  life,  and  no  acquaintance  with 
the  ways  of  men  can  save  a  soul,  it  is  only 
that  He  may  insist  that  man  must  know  his 
own  soul,  and  the  deep  difference  of  right  and 
wrong,  and  theinfinite  holiness  of  God.  These 
are  true  knowledges.  "  That  they  might  know 
Thee,  the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ 
whom  Thou  hast  sent."  It  is  of  all  impor- 
tance that  we  should  know  that  the  Christian 
life  is  a  life  of  knowledge,  not  of  ignorance. 
It  is  a  separate,  a  higher  region  of  knowledge 
than  that  to  which  we  generally  give  the 
name;  but  it  is  knowledge  still.  It  is  the 
apprehension  of  truths,  of  those  vast  truths 
which  the  senses  cannot  discover,  nor  the 
intellect  evolve,  but  which  through  the  open 
avenues  of  the  spirit  enter  in  and  occupy  the 
life.  VI.  167. 

Have  I  knowledge  ?  confounded  it   shrinks  at 

wisdom  laid  bare! 
Have  I  forethought  ?  how  purblind,  how  blank 
to  the  Infinite  Care!  Browning. 


JULY    lo.  t9i 


IT  is  the  law  of  God,  that  wherever  there  is 
duty  there  is  also  possible  joy.  Just  as 
the  man  who  sees  foliage  knows  that  some- 
where there  must  be  water,  although  his  eyes 
or  ears  cannot  discern  it,  and  the  trees  seem 
to  grow  out  of  the  sand;  so  the  man  who  is 
sure  that  in  any  spot  there  is  duty  for  him  to 
do  knows  that  there  is  a  happiness  for  him 
somewhere  in  the  doing  of  that  duty,  even 
though  for  the  present  it  seems  to  be  a  dread- 
ful drudgery.  In  the  expectation  of  that  joy 
he  works.  The  expectation  of  ]oy is  joy;  and 
so  the  man  who  in  his  voluntariness  surrenders 
some  delight  or  privilege,  finds  that  there  is  a 
subtler  mastery  of  happiness  which  is  to  be 
gained  only  by  giving  it  up  and  seeking  some- 
thing higher,  though  for  the  time  it  seems  to 
separate  us  from  the  happiness  we  love.  Many 
and  many  an  experience  there  is  in  this  world 
which  gives  us  the  right  to  believe  that  happi- 
ness is  something  very  coy  and  wilful,  which, 
when  we  chase  it,  runs  away  from  us;  but, 
when  we  turn  away  from  it  and  seek  for  some- 
thing better,  and  forget  to  seek  it,  changes  its 
mind  and  chases  us. 

III.  238. 


He  was  not  all  unhappy.     His  resolve 
Upbore  him,  and  firm  faith,  and  evermore 
Prayer  from  a  living  source  within  the  will. 
And  beating  up  through  all  the  bitter  Vorld, 
Like  fountains  of  sweet  water  in  the  sea, 
Kept  him  a  living  soul. 

Tennyson. 


192  JULY    II. 


With  what  measwe  ye  mete,  it  shall  be  measured 
to  you  again. — Matt.  vii.  2. 


IT  is  a  law  of  vast  extent  and  wonderful 
exactness.  The  world  is  far  more  orderly 
than  we  believe;  a  deeper  and  a  truer  justice 
runs  through  it  than  we  imagine.  We  all  go 
about  calling  ourselves  victims,  discoursing  on 
the  cruel  world,  and  wondering  that  it  should 
treat  us  so,  when  really  we  are  only  meeting 
the  rebound  of  our  own  lives.  What  we  have 
been  to  things  about  us  has  made  it  necessary 
that  they  should  be  this  to  us.  As  we  have 
given  ourselves  to  them,  so  they  have  given 
themselves  to  us.  .  .  .  Only,  keep  your  minds 
clear  of  any  materialism  which  would  think 
that  in  mere  earth  itself  resides  this  power  of 
just  and  discriminating  reply.  It  is  as  we  and 
all  things  exist  together  in  the  great  embrac- 
ing and  pervading  element  of  God  that  all 
things  give  themselves  to  us  as  we  give  our- 
selves to  them.  So  all  the  phenomena  of  life 
are  at  the  same  time  divine  judgments  if  we 
are  only  wise  enough  to  read  them. 

III.  268. 


Vainly  the  lonely  tarn  its  cup 

Holds  to  the  feeding  skies; 
Unless  the  source  be  lifted  up, 

The  streamlet  cannot  rise: 
By  law  inexorably  blent. 
Each  is  the  other's  measurement. 

Susan  Coolidge. 


JULY    12.  193 


IN  some  strange  shrine  of  Romish  or  Pagan 
religion,  all  glorious  with  art,  all  blazing 
with  the  light  of  precious  stones,  there  bend 
around  the  altar  the  true  devotees  who  believe 
with  all  their  souls;  while  at  the  door.  .  .  . 
lingers  a  group  of  travellers  full  of  joy  at  the 
wondrous  beauty  of  the  place;  and  as  when 
the  music  ceases  and  the  lights  go  out  they  go 
away,  each  carrying  what  it  was  in  him  to 
receive, — the  devotee  his  spiritual  peace,  the 
artistic  tourist  his  aesthetic  joy:  somen  bestow 
themselves  on  Christ,  and  by  the.  selves  that 
they  bestow  on  Him  the  giving  of  Himself  to 
them  must  of  necessity  be  measured.  .  .  . 
Not  merely  with  outstretched  hands  but  with 
open  hearts  we  must  stand  before  Him.  .  .  . 
Then  to  each  of  us  even  here  upon  the  earth 
shall  begin  that  which  is  to  be  the  everlasting 
wonder  and  delight  of  heaven,  the  perfect  giv- 
ing of  the  Lord  to  souls  that  are  perfectly 
given  to  Him,  the  everlasting  action  and  reac- 
tion, the  unhindered  beating  back  and  forth  of 
need  and  grace  between  the  Saviour  on  His 
throne  and  His  servants  at  their  tireless  work 
for  Him. 

III.  2S6. 

What  Thou   hast  given,  do   Thou   receive  the 

same; 
And  whence  the  rivers  rise,  thither   let  them 

return. 

Thomas  A  Kempis. 


13 


194  JULY    13. 


Lord,  is  it  I? — Matt.  xxvi.  22. 


NO  sin  is  sudden.  The  warning  may  be  only- 
half  recognized,  but  when  the  sin  of  our 
life  comes,  who  of  us  has  not  felt,  strangely 
mingled  with  its  strangeness,  a  certain  dread- 
ful familiarity,  such  as  one  might  feel  when  a 
man  whom  he  had  never  seen,  but  of  whom  he 
dreamed  last  night,  and  whose  face  he  remem- 
bered from  the  dream,  stepped  in  the  living 
flesh  across  his  threshold  ?  .  .  .  The  man  in 
business,  spurning  the  very  thought  of  cheat- 
ing, as  ready  as  he  ever  was  to  strike  down 
any  man  who  dared  approach  him  with  temp- 
tation, finds  himself  some  day  questioning  duty 
and  trying  to  make  it  say  that  it  is  not  duty, 
or  seeing  how  close  he  can  run  under  the  lee 
of  a  doubtful  transaction  and  yet  sail  out  safe. 
He  has  not  sinned,  but  if  he  is  a  sensitive  and 
thoughtful  man  he  sees,  as  he  opens  his  eyes 
to  what  he  is  doing,  how  he  7Jiight  sin.  He 
shudders  as  a  man  might  who,  walking  in  his 
sleep,  woke  up  and  found  that  what  he  thought 
was  music  is  the  roaring  in  his  ears  of  the 
chasm  on  whose  brink  he  stands.  His  coming 
sin  has  given  liim  its  warning. 

VII.  119,  120. 


Out  of  my  soul's  depths  to  Thee  my  cries  have 

sounded; 
Lord,  shouldst   Thou  weigh   our  faults,  who's 

not  confounded  ? 

Campion. 


JULY    14.  195 

OUR  best  moments  are  the  utterance  of  our 
highest,  truest  possibility.  .  .  .  They 
are  the  type  of  what  we  always  might  and 
ought  to  be.  For  the  exceptionalness  of  an 
event  is  not  properly  measured  by  its  rarity. 
The  exception  is  the  departure  from  the  law 
of  life,  whether  it  comes  rarely  or  comes  often. 
If  the  law  of  a  man's  life,  the  standard,  the 
ideal  of  it,  is  that  he  shall  be  true,  and  ninety- 
nine  times  to-day  he  lies  and  only  once  he  tells 
the  truth,  those  ninety-nine  times  are  really 
ninety-nine  exceptions.  Once,  only  once,  he 
has  been  his  true  self,  conformed  to  his  law. 

If  all  the  world  could  know  that,  what  a 
great  change  would  come!  If  we  could  all  be 
sure  that  our  best  is  our  most  natural — that  it 
is  the  evil  which  is  most  unnatural;  if  I  knew 
man  simply  in  his  intrinsic  nature,  nothing  at 
all  of  this  long  dark  history  of  his,  I  think 
that  nothing  he  could  do  would  be  so  good  as 
to  surprise  me.  It  would  be  his  wickedness 
that  would  seem  strange.  To  keep  that  feel- 
ing about  him,  in  spite  of  this  long  history  of 
his — that  is  the  triumph  of  the  truest  faith. 

VII.  34S,  349. 

All  is  well,  I  know,  without; 
I  alone  the  beauty  mar, 
I  alone  the  music  jar. 
Yet,  with  hands  by  evil  stained. 
And  an  ear  by  discord  pained, 
I  am  groping  for  the  keys 
Of  the  heavenly  harmonies; 
Still  within  my  heart  I  bear 
Love  for  all  things  good  and  fair. 

Whittier. 


196  JULY    15. 


HAVE  you  been  in  the  habit  of  thinking  of 
Christ  as  of  one  so  faraway,  so  different 
from  us,  that  what  He  is  and  does  seems  to 
throw  no  light  on  what  we  may  be  and  do  ? 
But  such  a  thought  as  that  denies  the  very 
power  of  the  Incarnation.  Here  stand  our 
human  lives,  all  dark  and  lustreless.  Here 
stands  one  human  life  in  which  has  been 
lighted  the  fire  of  an  evident  divinity.  Shall 
we  look  on  and  see  the  fine  lines  and  the  fair 
colors  of  human  nature  brought  out  by  the 
fire  which  burns  within,  and  not  make  any 
glowing  inference  with  regard  to  our  own 
humanity,  with  regard  to  its  unfulfilled  pos- 
sibilities and  the  attainments  for  which  it  may 
confidently  hope  ?     Surely  not  so!   .    .    . 

Let  us  believe  indeed  that  in  the  experience 
of  Christ  there  is  such  revelation  of  the  pos- 
sibility, such  confirmation  of  the  hopes  of  our 
humanity!  So  only  does  this  life  become  that 
beacon  on  the  mountain-top,  that  bugle-cry  at 
the  army's  head,  which  He  evidently  counted 
it  to  be,  which  it  has  so  often  been  through  all 
the  Christian  centuries! 

IV.  282,  283. 

Jesus,  Saviour,  Friend  most  dear! 
Dwell  Thou  with  us  daily  here; 
By  Thine  own  life  teach  us  this — 
How  divine  the  human  is! 

One  with  God,  as  heart  with  heart, 
Saviour,  lift  us  where  Thou  art; 
Join  us  to  His  life,  through  Thine, 
Human  still,  though  all  divine! 

Lucy  Larcom. 


JULY    i6.  197 


And  He  answered  to  him  never  a  word  j  inso- 
much that  the  governor  marvelled  greatly. 

Matt,  xxvii.  14. 

00  the  prisoner  revealed  Himself  to  His 
^  amazed  and  frightened  judge.  By  silence 
often  of  necessity  and  not  by  speech  He  must 
make  Himself  known,  because  the  revelation 
is  too  great  for  words  to  contain;  because  the 
hearer  cannot  hold  the  truth  and  yet,  by  his 
strange  human  capacity,  can  hold  Him  who 
speaks  the  truth,  Him  who  is  the  truth;  be- 
cause words  sometimes  hide  instead  of  reveal- 
ing what  they  try  to  tell, — for  all  these  rea- 
sons the  Lord  often  when  we  pray  to  Him 
answers  us  not  a  word. 

Oh,  my  friends,  if  our  answered  prayers  are 
precious  to  us,  I  sometimes  think  our  un- 
answered prayers  are  more  precious  still. 
Those  give  us  God's  blessings;  these,  if  we 
will,  may  lead  us  to  God.  Do  not  let  any 
moment  of  your  life  fail  of  God's  light.  Be 
sure  that  whether  He  speaks  or  is  silent.  He 
is  always  loving  you,  and  always  trying  to 
make  your  life  more  rich  and  good  and  happy. 

V.  139. 

All  as  God  wills,  who  wisely  heeds 
To  give  or  to  withhold. 

And  knoweth  more  of  all  my  needs 
Than  all  my  prayers  have  told. 

Whittier. 


198  JULY    17. 


And  a  vision  appeared  to  Paul  in  the  night: 
There  stood  a  man  of  Macedonia,  and  prayed  him 
.   .   .    Come  over,  and  help  us. — Acts  xvi.  9. 

SO  far  as  we  know  there  was  no  one  man  in 
Macedonia  who  wanted  Paul.  .  .  .  But 
what,  then,  means  the  man  from  Mace- 
donia ?  .  .  .  He  is  the  utterance  not  of  a 
conscious  want,  but  of  the  unconscious  need 
of  those  poor  people.  It  is  the  unsatisfied  soul, 
the  deep  need,  all  the  more  needy  because  the 
outside  life,  perfectly  satisfied  with  itself,  does 
not  know  that  it  is  needy  all  the  time, — it  is 
this  that  God  hears  pleading.  This  soul  is  the 
true  Macedonia.  And  so  this,  as  the  repre- 
sentative Macedonian,  the  man  of  Macedonia, 
brings  the  appeal.  How  noble  and  touching 
is  the  picture  which  this  gives  us  of  God.  The 
unconscious  needs  of  the  world  are  all  appeals 
and  cries  to  Him.  He  does  not  wait  to  hear  the 
voice  of  conscious  want.  The  mere  vacancy 
is  a  begging  after  fulness;  the  mere  poverty  is 
a  supplication  for  wealth;  the  mere  darkness 
cries  for  light.  .  .  .  The  "man  of  Mace- 
donia" was  the  very  heart  and  essence  of 
Macedonia,  the  profoundest  capacities  of  truth 
and  goodness  and  faith  and  salvation  which 
Macedonia  itself  knew  nothing  of,  but  which 
were  its  real  self.  These  were  what  took  form 
and  pleaded  for  satisfaction.  11.  94,  95. 

O  Lord  God,  hear  the  silence  of  each  soul, 
Its  cry  unutterable  of  ruth  and  shame, 
Its  voicelessness  of  self-contempt  and  blame  : 
Nor  suffer  harp  and  palm  and  aureole 
Of  multitudes  who  praise  Thee  at  the  goal, 
To  set  aside  Thy  poor  and  blind  and  lame  ! 

Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


JULY    i8.  199 


Knowing   that  ye   are  the 7' e to  called,  that  ye 
should  inherit  a  blessing. — i  Pet.  iii.  9, 

THERE  are  always  great  unifying  truths 
waiting  to  close  around  and  bind  into  a 
surprising  unity  the  fragmentary  lives  we  live. 
For  we  certainly  do  live  very  much  in  frag- 
ments. Our  special  blessings  stand  isolated, 
and  are  not  grasped  and  gathered  into  one 
great  pervading  consciousness  of  a  blessed 
life, — of  a  life  brooded  over  and  cared  for  and 
trained  by  God  the  Blesser.  ...  If  you 
could  believe  in  one  great  utterance  of  God, 
one  incarnate  word,  the  manifested  pity  of 
God  and  the  illustrated  possibility  of  man  at 
once, — then,  with  such  a  central  point,  there 
could  be  no  more  fragmentariness  any- 
where. .  .  .  Blessings  of  every  sort  are 
reflections  of  that  great  blessing.  .  .  .  The 
manifestation  of  the  Son  of  God,  of  Christ, 
gives  all  other  blessings  a  place  and  meaning, 
just  as  the  sun  in  heaven  accounts  for  and 
rescues  from  fragmentariness  every  little  light 
of  the  innumerable  host  which,  in  every  hue 
and  brilliancy,  sparkle  and  flash  and  glow  from 
every  point  of  our  sun-lit  world,     v.  199,  202. 

My  being.  Lord,  will  nevermore  be  whole 

Until  Thou  come  behind  my  ears  and  eyes. 
Enter  and  fill  the  temple  of  my  soul 

With    perfect    contact — such    a    sweet    sur- 
prise— 
Such  presence  as,  before  it  met  the  view, 

The  prophet-fancy  could  not  once  foresee. 
Though  every  corner  of  the  temple  knew 

By  very  emptiness  its  need  of  Thee. 

George  Macdonald. 


''  NJ  OBSAti 


200  JULY    19. 


The  eyes  of  the  Lo?'d  are  over  the  righteous,  .  .  . 
and  if  ye  suffer  for  righteousness'  sake^  happy  are 
ye. — I  Pet.  xii.  14. 

IT  is  so  hard  to  do  right,  you  say.  Yes,  of 
course  it  is;  and  the  soul  that  tries  to  do 
right  does  wrong  so  constantly!  But  then  it 
is  so  glorious — glorious  to  do  right  through 
struggle;  glorious  to  mount  from  the  lower  to 
the  higher  life,  and  seeing  how  God  has 
bound  our  perfection  to  His  own,  have  but  one 
confident  prayer  for  both:  not,  "  Father,  save 
me  from  this  hour  " — from  any  hour,  however 
hard  it  be— but  "  Father,  glorify  Thy  name." 
And  as  to  Christ  when  He  prayed,  so  often 
to  us,  sharers  not  only  of  His  struggle,  but  of 
His  triumph,  there  shall  come  a  voice  from 
heaven,  saying,  "  I  have  both  glorified  it,  and 
will  glorify  it  now  again  in  thee. ' '  Who  cannot 
dare  all  things  and  bear  all  things  in  the 
celestial  courage  of  that  promise  ? 

VII.  237. 

God's  trumpet  wakes  the  slumbering  world; 

Now,  each  man  to  his  post! 
The  red-cross  banner  is  unfurled; 

Who  joins  the  glorious  host  ? 

He  who,  with  calm,  undaunted  will. 

Ne'er  counts  the  battle  lost. 
But,  though  defeated,  battles  still, — 

He  joins  the  faithful  host! 

He  who  is  ready  for  the   cross, 
The  cause  despised  loves  most, 

And  shuns  not  pain  or  shame  or  loss, — 
He  joins  the  martyr  host! 

Samuel  Longfellow. 


JULY    20. 


And  I  saw  as  it  7vere  a  sea  of  glass  mingled 
with  fire  ;  afid  them  that  had  gotteft  the  victory 
.  .   .  haviftg  the  harps  of  God. — Rev.  xv.  2. 

DISAPPOINTMENTS  of  every  sort,  sor- 
rows, sufferings,  trials,  struggles,  rest- 
lessness and  dissatisfaction,  false  friends,  poor 
health,  low  tastes  and  standards  all  about  us 
— who  shall  catalogue  the  troubles  of  human 
life  ?  Who  shall  tell  the  difference  between 
two  men  who  live  in  different  aspects  of  all 
these  things  ?  Are  they  intrusions,  accidents, 
thwartings  and  disappointments  of  the  will  of 
God  ?  Or  are  they  (this  is  what  our  doctrine 
says  they  are)  Messiahs,  things  sent,  having, 
like  the  ships  that  sail  to  our  ports  from  far-off 
lands  of  barbarian  richness,  rare  spices  and 
fragrant  oils  and  choice  foods  that  we  cannot 
find  at  home,  whose  foreign  luxuriance  forces 
its  odorous  way  through  the  coarse  and  uncouth 
coverings  in  which  their  wealth  was  packed 
away  in  the  savage  lands  from  which  they 
came  ?  Are  they  prolific  sources  of  spiritual 
culture,  contributing  what  our  best  happiness 
could  not  have  except  from  them,  the  energy 
and  vitality  which  there  is  no  way  of  stirring 
up  in  human  nature  but  by  some  sense  of 
danger,  the  fire  to  mingle  with  the  glass  ? 

IV.  117. 


Happy  is  he  whose  heart 
Hath  found  the  art 

To  turn  his  double  pains  to  double  praise! 

George  Herbert. 


JULY    21. 


WHEN  we  open  our  eyes  morning  after 
morning  and  find  the  old  struggle,  on 
which  we  closed  our  eyes  last  night,  awaiting 
us;  .  .  .  when  all  our  habits  and  thoughts 
have  become  entwined  and  colored  with  some 
tyrannical  necessity,  which,  however  it  may 
change  the  form  of  its  tyranny,  will  never  let 
us  go, — it  grows  so  hard  as  almost  to  appear 
impossible  for  us  to  anticipate  that  that  domin- 
ion ever  is  to  disappear,  and  that  we  shall  ever 
shake  free  our  wings,  and  leave  behind  the 
earth  to  which  we  have  been  chained  so  long. 
But  the  day  comes,  nevertheless.  Some 
morning  Ave  go  out  to  meet  the  old  struggle, 
and  it  is  not  there.  .  .  .  Things  do  get  done, 
and  when  anything  is  really  finished,  then 
come  thoughtful  moments  in  which  we  ask 
ourselves  whether  we  have  let  that  which  we 
shall  know  no  longer  do  for  us  all  that  it  had 
in  its  power  to  do,  whether  we  are  carrying 
out  of  the  finished  experience  that  which  it  has 
all  along  been  trying  to  give  to  our  characters 
and  souls.  VI.  56,  57. 

I  search,  but  cannot  see 
What  purpose  serves  the  soul  that  strives,  .  .  . 
.   .    .   unless  the  fruit  of  victories 
Stay,  one  and   all,  stored   up  and   guaranteed 

its  own 
Forever,  by  some  mode  whereby  shall  be  made 

known 
The  gain  of  every  life.  Browning. 

Afterwa7'd  it  yieldeth    the  peaceable  fruit  of 
righteousness. — Heb.  xii.  ji. 


JULY    22.  203 


He  led  t/ief?t  fo?'th  by  the  I'ight  way,  that  they 
might  go  to  a  city  of  habitation. — Ps.  cvii.  7. 

A  TRAVELLER  is  going  to  a  great  city 
which  is  his  final  goal.  At  the  very  be- 
ginning of  the  journey  the  road  leads  over  a 
high  hill.  Upon  the  summit  the  traveller  can 
clearly  see  the  spires  of  the  far-away  city  flash- 
ing in  the  sunlight.  He  feasts  his  eyes  on  it. 
And  then  he  follows  the  road  down  into  the 
valley.  It  plunges  into  forests.  It  sounds 
the  depths  in  which  flow  the  dark  waters  which 
the  sun  never  touches.  But  yet  it  never  for- 
gets the  city  which  it  saw  from  the  hilltop. 
It  feels  that  distant  unforgotten  glory  drawing 
it  toward  it  in  a  tight  straight  line.  And  when 
at  last  the  traveller  enters  in  that  city,  it  is  not 
strange  to  him,  because  of  the  prophecy  of  it 
which  has  been  in  his  heart  ever  since  he  saw 
it  from  the  hill. 

If  we  read  rightly,  thus,  the  method  by 
which  God  brings  His  children  to  their  best 
attainment,  it  is  certainly  a  method  full  of 
wisdom  and  beauty.  First  He  lets  shine  upon 
them  for  a  moment  the  thing  He  wants  them 
to  become,  the  greatness  or  the  goodness  which 
He  wishes  them  to  reach.  And  then,  with 
that  shining  vision  fastened  in  their  hearts.  He 
sets  them  forth  on  the  long  road  to  reach  it. 
The  vision  does  not  make  it  theirs.  The  jour- 
ney is  still  to  be  made,  the  task  is  still  to  be 
done.  But  all  the  time,  that  sight  which  the 
man  saw  from  the  mountain-top  is  still  before 
the  eyes,  and  no  darkness  can  be  perfectly  dis- 
couraging to  him  who  keeps  that  memory  and 
prophecy  of  light.  VII.  340. 


204  JULY    23. 


Ye  are  My  witnesses,  saith  the  Lord,  that  I  a7?i 
God. — Is.  xliii.  12. 


NO  man  is  a  separate,  rounded  character, 
independent  of  any  other,  carrying  his 
own  qualities  included  within  himself;  every 
man  is  a  medium  through  which  God  expresses 
Himself  with  more  or  less  of  clearness  and 
effectiveness,  according  to  the  dimness  or  the 
transparency  of  the  character  on  which  His 
light  falls.  We  are  like  windows  through 
which  a  higher  light  is  always  falling;  but 
the  window  is  blurred  and  mottled  because  at 
some  places  it  is  stained  deep  and  will  not  let 
the  light  through;  and  where  it  does  receive 
it,  it  is  always  conscious  of  receivijtg.  The 
radiance  with  which  it  shines  comes  to  it  from 
without — not  it  shines,  but  the  light  shines 
through  it. 

We  learn  to  count  men,  thus,  not  by  the 
witness  that  they  bear  of  themselves,  but  by 
the  witness  that  they  bear  of  God.  .  .  . 
Many  of  the  most  subtle  and  perplexing 
phenomena  of  human  life  become  clearer  to 
us  when  we  have  once  reached  this  conception 
of  the  unity  of  the  universe,  of  the  way  in 
which  man  exists  and  manifests  himself  only 
in  relation  toward  God.  "  Christ  is  all,  and 
in  all;''  or,  in  Paul's  phrase,  "None  of  us 
liveth  to  himself,  and  no  man  dieth  to  him- 
self. Whether  we  live,  therefore,  or  die,  we 
are  the  Lord's." 

VII.  38,  39. 


JULY    24.  205 


No  reflection  so  imperfect 

But  it  something  clear  doth  speak 

Of  a  fuller  revelation 

Waiting  for  the  eyes  that  seek; 

Love  is  made  in  heavenly  likeness 
Though  the  image  be  but  weak. 

J.  L.  M.  W. 

AS  the  sun  shines  upon  a  bank  of  snow  no 
two  of  all  the  myriad  particles  catch  his 
light  alike  or  give  the  same  interpretation  of 
his  glory.  Have  you  ever  imagined  such  a 
purpose  for  your  commonplace  existence  ?  If 
you  have  you  must  have  asked  yourself  what 
the  quality  is  in  a  man's  life  which  can  make 
it  reflective  of  God — capable  of  bearing  witness 
of  Him.  There  is  some  quality  in  the  polished 
brass  or  in  the  calm  lake  that  makes  it  able  to 
send  forth  again  the  sunlight  that  descends 
upon  it.  What  is  it  in  a  soul  that  makes  it 
able  to  do  the  same  to  the  God  who  sheds 
Himself  upon  its  life  ?  The  Bible  has  its  one 
great  name  for  such  a  great  transforming  qual- 
ity, and  that  is  ''love.''  Love  in  the  Bible  is 
not  so  much  an  action  of  the  soul  as  it  is  a 
quality  in  the  soul  permitting  God  to  do  His 
divine  actions  through  it.  The  love  of  God 
is  a  new  nature,  a  new  fiber,  a  new  fineness 
and  responsiveness  in  the  soul  itself,  by  which 
God  is  able  to  express  Himself  upon  and 
through  it  as  He  cannot  when  He  finds  only 
the  medium  of  the  coarse  material  of  an  un- 
loving heart.  VII.  46. 

If  any  man  love  God^  the  same  is  known  of  Him. 

I  Cor.  viii.  3. 


2o6  JULY    25. 


Here  is  the  patience  and  faith  of  the  saints. 

Rev.  xiii.  10. 

BETTER  that  the  whole  calendar  were 
swept  away  and  every  saint  forgotten, 
than  that  one  of  them  should  take  anything 
from  that  perfect  prerogative  of  saviourship 
which  is  the  Saviour's  own.  But  this  need  not 
be.  .  .  .  Christ  is  more  utterly  my  sole  re- 
source in  strong  temptation,  the  only  Being  I 
can  flee  to,  when  I  see  strong  men  of  the 
saintly  histories  turned  into  weakness  before 
the  power  of  evil,  and  fleeing  in  desperation  to 
that  same  Christ,  to  be  restrengthened  with  a 
higher  power  than  the  old.  There  is  a  use  of 
the  saints  that  can  make  Christ  nearer,  clearer, 
dearer  to  our  souls.  They  may  be  like  a  mere 
atmosphere  between  our  souls  and  Him,  whose 
every  particle,  filled  with  Him,  has  passed  on 
His  life  to  the  next  particle,  and  so  at  last  sent 
Him  down  to  us  pure,  as  He  is,  uncolored  with 
its  own  blueness,  the  '*  light  that  lighteth  every 
man,"  lighting  us  all  the  more  brightly  be- 
cause it  has  lighted  them. 

I.  128,  129. 

What  is  the  flame  of  their  fire,  if  so   I  may 
catch  the  flame; 
What  the  strength   of  their  strength,  if  also 
I  may  wax  strong  ? 
The  flaming  fire  of  their  strength  is  the  love 
of  Jesu's  Name, 
In   whom   their   death    is    life,    their  silence 
utters  a  song. 

Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


JULY    26.  207 


I  a)n  He  thai  liveth,  aiidivas  dead  ;  afid^  behold, 
I  am  alive  forevermore ;  .  .  .  atid  have  the  keys 
of .  .  .  death. — Rev.  i.  18. 

IT  is  because  He  died  that  He  holds  the  keys 
of  death.  .  .  .  They  who  have  under- 
gone and  overcome  stand  with  their  keys  to 
open  the  portals  of  life's  great  emergencies  to 
their  brethren.  The  wondrous  power  of  ex- 
perience! And  see  how  beautiful  and  enno- 
bling this  makes  our  sorrows  and  temptations. 
Every  stroke  of  sorrow  that  issues  into  light 
and  joy  is  God  putting  into  your  hand  the  key 
of  that  sorrow  to  unlock  it  for  all  the  poor 
souls  whom  you  may  see  approaching  it, 
through  all  your  future  life.  It  is  a  noble  thing 
to  take  that  key  and  use  it.  There  are  no  nobler 
lives  on  earth  than  those  of  men  and  women 
who  have  passed  through  many  experiences  of 
many  sorts,  and  who  now  go  about  with  calm 
and  happy  and  sober  faces,  holding  the  keys, 
some  golden  and  some  iron,  and  finding  their 
joy  in  opening  the  gates  of  these  experiences 
to  younger  souls,  and  sending  them  into  them 
full  of  intelligence  and  hope  and  trust.  Such 
lives,  I  think,  we  may  all  pray  to  grow  into  as 
we  grow  older,  and  pass  through  more  and 
more  of  the  experiences  of  life. 

I.  217,  2ig. 

Blessed  be  God,  .  .  .  Who  coinforteih  us  in  all 
our  tribulation,  that  we  ?nay  be  able  to  comfort 
them  7vhich  are  in  any  trouble,  by  the  co?nfort 
wherewith  we  are  comforted  of  God. 

2  Cor.  i.  3,  4. 


2o8  JULY    27, 


And  at  midnight  Paid  and  Silas  prayed,  a?id 
sang  praises  unto  God. — Acts  xiv.  25, 

\1 /"HEN  it  enters  like  a  flood  of  light  into 
^^  the  soul  of  some  wretched  invalid  or 
some  victim  of  relentless  misfortune,  that  by 
a  faithful  patience  under  his  suffering  he  can 
glorify  God  and  show  forth  the  power  of 
Christ,  then  what  a  change  comes  to  him! 
How  all  is  transfigured!  How  full  of  beauty 
the  hated  sick-room  grows!  There  is  some- 
thing behind  the  suffering  for  the  suffering  to 
rest  and  steady  itself  upon.  The  light  has 
been  kindled  behind  the  dark  window,  and  all 
its  fair  lines  and  bright  colors  shine  out.  •  In 
the  purpose  of  the  suffering  the  escape  from 
the  suffering  is  found;  as  when  Paul  and  Silas, 
in  the  book  of  Acts,  sang  praises  to  God  by 
night  in  prison,  when  they  turned  their  im- 
prisonment into  a  tribute  to  their  Master,  then 
"the  foundations  of  the  prison  were  shaken, 
and  .  .  .  the  doors  were  opened,  and  every 
one's  bands  were  loosed." 

VI.  51. 

We  take  with  solemn  thankfulness 
Our  burden  up,  nor  ask  it  less. 
And  count  it  joy  that  even  we 
May  suffer,  serve,  or  wait  for  Thee, 
Whose  will  is  done. 

Whittier. 


JULY    28.  209 


Mark  how  the  fire  in  flints  doth  quiet  lie, 
Content  and  warm  t'  itself  alone; 

But  when  it  would  appear  to  others'  eye, 
Without  a  knock  it  never  shone. 

George  Herbert. 

SUPPOSE  that  years  ago  there  came  some 
crisis  in  your  life  which  taught  you  the 
necessity  and  the  glory  of  being  brave.  It 
was  some  mighty  day  of  God  with  you.  .  .  . 
You  dared  to  fight  because  you  dared  not  feebly 
run  away.  It  was  a  revelation  of  you  to  your- 
self. What  then  ?  The  crisis  past,  the  light- 
nings faded  and  the  thunders  hushed,  you 
came  down  from  the  mountain.  Ever  since 
that  you  have  walked  on  in  quiet,  level  ways. 
But  many  a  time,  in  simple  tasks  which  had 
not  power  of  themselves  to  bring  you  such 
self-revelations,  you  have  found  yourself  able 
to  be  brave  with  a  bravery  whose  possibility 
you  learned  in  that  tremendous  hour.  .  .  . 
Men  are  meeting  the  petty  enemies  of  the 
household  and  the  street  to-day  with  a  fortitude 
and  a  fearlessness  which  they  learned  thirty 
years  ago  on  the  battle-fields  of  the  Rebellion. 
Men  are  bearing  little  disappointments  with  a 
patience  which  was  born  in  them  while  they 
stood  by  the  death-bed  of  their  best  beloved. 
...  It  is  good  that  the  power  which  is  first 
born  under  exacting  and  peculiar  circumstances 
should  then  be  set  free  from  those  circum- 
stances altogether  and  become  the  general 
possession  of  the  life,  available  for  all  its 
needs.  The  cloud  forms  about  the  mountain- 
peak;  but  once  formed  there,  it  floats  away  and 
drop^;  its  blessing  upon  many  fields,  vil.  343. 


210  JULY    29. 


And  the  day  was  dark  over  them, 

Mic.  iii.  6. 

/^  MY  dear  friends,  it  is  a  terrible  thing 
^^  when  one's  religion  is  too  small  for  the 
world,  and  is  always  leaving  great  parts  of  the 
world's  life  unaccounted  for,  unilluminated, 
and  is  always  dreading  to  have  the  world  made 
any  larger,  lest  this  religion  shall  seem  even 
more  meagre  and  insufficient.  But  it  is  a 
great  thing  when  the  world  is  too  small  for 
one's  religion,  and  the  soul's  sense  of  the  glory 
and  dearness  of  God  is  always  craving  larger 
and  larger  regions  in  which  to  range.  Then 
welcome  all  discoveries,  all  illuminations,  all 
visions  of  the  greatness  of  the  world  of  God. 

VII.  177. 


Then  the  ever-lifted  cry: 

Give  us  light,  or  we  shall  die! 

Cometh  to  the  Father's  ears. 

And  He  hearkens,  and  He  hears.   .   .   . 

They,  hardly  trusting  happy  eyes. 

Discern  a  dawning  in  the  skies: 

'Tis  Truth  awaking  in  the  soul; 

Thy  Righteousness  to  make  them  whole. 

— What  shall  men,  this  Truth  adoring. 

Gladness-giving,  youth-restoring. 

Call  it  but  eternal  Light  ? 

'Tis  the  morning,  'twas  the  night. 

George  Macdonald. 


JULY    30.  211 


PVERYWHERE  the  lower  furnishes  oppor- 
-'— '  tunities  for  the  higher,  and  is  a  failure 
unless  the  higher  blooms  out  of  the  ground 
which  the  lower  has  made  ready.  It  is  Paul's 
groaning  and  travailing  creation.  It  is  the 
unity  of  the  universe  in  which,  from  end  to 
end,  there  is  no  hardest,  commonest,  and 
cheapest  thing  which,  living  in  simple  healthi- 
ness and  self-respect,  may  not  become  the 
gathering  point  and  manifestation  point  of  the 
most  infinite  celestial  light, — no  stone  that 
may  not  make  an  altar.  Reverence  the  simple, 
the  prosaic,  the  natural,  the  real;  but  demand 
of  every  common  thing  of  life,  whether  it  be 
your  body  or  your  money  or  your  daily  experi- 
ence, that  it  shall  bloom  to  fine  results  in  your 
own  soul  and  in  your  influence  upon  the 
world. 

VI.  254. 

One  small  life  in  God's  great  plan, 

How  futile  it  seems  as  the  ages  roll, 
Do  what  it  may,  or  strive  how  it  can. 

To  alter  the  sweep  of  the  infinite  whole!  .  .  . 
But  the  pattern  is  rent  where  the  stitch  is  lost. 
Or  marred   where   the  tangled    threads    have 

crossed; 
And  each  life  that  fails  of  its  true  intent 
Mars  the  perfect  plan  that  its  Master  meant. 

Susan  Cooliuge. 


212  JULY   31. 


Love  mocks  thee,  whose  mounting  desire 
Doth  not  to  the  Perfect  aspire. 

TWO  men  who  have  known  each  other  for 
years  become  together  the  servants  of 
Christ.  His  spirit  comes  to  them.  They 
begin  the  new  life  of  which  He  is  the  centre 
and  the  soul.  How  their  old  friendship 
changes!  How  it  is  all  the  same,  and  yet  how 
different  it  is!  It  opens  depths  and  heights 
they  never  dreamed  of.  Where  they  used  to 
do  so  little  for  each  other,  now  they  can  do  so 
much.  Where  they  used  to  touch  only  on  the 
outside,  now  their  whole  natures  blend.  They 
have  taken  friendship  and  planted  it  where  it 
belongs,  in  the  soil  and  air  of  the  divine  love; 
and  it  opens  its  essential  richness  as  the  trop- 
ical flower  which  has  been  living  a  half-life  in 
the  northern  soil  tells  its  whole  sweet  and 
gorgeous  story  of  itself  when  it  is  carried  to 
the  bright  skies  and  warm  ground  for  which 
God  made  it. 

VII.  312. 

A  friend!     Deep  is  calling  to  deep! 
A  friend!     The  heart  wakes  from  its  sleep, 
To  behold  the  world  lit  by  one  face, 
With  one  heavenward  step  to  keep  pace. 

O  Heart  wherein  all  hearts  are  known, 
Whose  infinite  throb  stirs  our  own, 
O  Friend  beyond  friends,  what  are  we. 
Who  ask  so  much  less,  yet  have  Thee! 

Lucy  Larcom, 


AUGUST    I. 


Jesus  saith  unto  them,  How  maiiy  loaves  have 
ye? — Matt.  xv.  34. 

WHEN  you  stand  face  to  face  with  a 
hungry-eyed  creature  whom  you  want 
to  feed  with  better  Hfe,  be  sure  that  you  imi- 
tate your  Lord.  Be  sure  that  you  begin  by 
asking  him  "  How  many  loaves  have  you,  my 
poor  friend  ?  What  can  you  give  me  to  begin 
with  ?  What  has  God  done  for  you  already  ? 
Show  me  your  best,  and  we  will  pray  to  God 
together  that  as  you  put  it  into  His  hands  He 
will  bless  it  and  multiply  it,  till  your  whole  life 
is  fed  with  the  grace  which  is  all  His  but  which 
He  has  made  yours  by  bidding  it  work  upon 
the  substance  of  what  He  had  given  you 
already." 

"  How  many  loaves  have  you  ?  "  It  is  the 
Lord's  first  question;  and  the  hands  of  those 
who  really  want  His  help,  search  their  robes 
to  see  what  they  have  hidden  there.  One 
brings  his  joy;  another  brings  his  pain; 
another  brings  his  helpless  desire;  another 
brings  his  poor  resolution;  another  has  noth- 
ing to  bring  except  just  his  sorrow  that  he  has 
nothing.  It  is  a  poor  collection;  only  seven 
loaves,  and  a  few  little  fishes;  but  it  is  enough. 
His  blessing  falls  upon  them,  and  they  come 
back  to  the  souls  which  gave  them  up  to  Him, 
multiplied  into  the  means  of  healthy,  holy, 
happy  life. 

May  God  help  us  all,  every  day  of  our  lives, 
to  come  to  Christ  just  as  we  are,  that  He  may 
make  us  more  and  more  just  what  we  ought 
to  be. 

II.  142, 146. 


214  AUGUST    2. 


THE  home,  school,  and  shop  must  be  here 
on  the  fairest  hillsides  and  plains  of  the 
world  for  something.  If  we  will  not  claim 
them  for  their  best  use,  and  by  our  use  of 
them  exalt  them  to  their  best  explanations,  we 
need  not  wonder  at  the  low  and  godless  ex- 
planations which  men  give  of  them.  When  we 
are  willing  to  see  in  them  the  ministrations  of 
God;  when  men,  asking  for  the  means  of 
grace,  are  pointed,  first  of  all,  to  the  duties 
and  relations  of  their  lives  as  the  places  where 
they  will  meet  God,  where  they  will  find  the 
deepest  experiences, — conviction  of  sin,  utter 
humility,  the  need  of  Christ,  and  the  ideal  of 
holiness, — then  how  the  dead  earth  and  all 
that  is  upon  it  will  glow  with  a  fire  that  no 
materialism  will  quench.  Till  then,  so  long 
as  we  fail  to  use  the  world  for  spiritual  culture, 
no  wonder  if  it  be  dead;  and  who  cares 
whether  the  dead  thing  sprang  from  the  hand 
of  a  creator  or  took  shape  of  chaos  by  a  force 
as  dead  as  itself  ?  X.  31. 

Not  he  who  spins  with  subtle  art 

The  webs  of  fine  philosophy. 
Not  he  who  dwells  alone,  apart, 

In  scorn  of  poor  humanity. 
Nor  he  who  cries,  Lo,  here!     Lo,  there! 

The  hidden  Christ  is  sure  to  be! 
But  he  who  treads  the  narrow  path 

Of  homely  duty  day  by  day. 
And  lends  whatever  strength  he  hath 

To  help  his  brother  on  the  way. 
Will  surest  hear  at  set  of  sun, 
The  Master's  loving  word,  "  Well  done!  " 

J.  L.  M.  W. 


AUGUST    3.  215 


THE  best  and  noblest  natures  are  marked 
by  hardly  anything  so  much  as  this, — the 
simultaneousness  and  reasonableness  of  the 
lives  they  live.  .  .  ,  The  spontaneousness 
does  not  obscure  the  reason,  and  the  reason 
does  not  hamper  and  clog  the  spontaneousness. 
So  it  always  seems  to  me  that  it  is  with  Jesus. 
He  presses  His  brother's  hands  with  brotherly 
affection.  His  brother's  sneer  wounds  as  no 
stranger's  can.  His  mother's  sorrow  enters  into 
its  own  secret  chamber  of  sympathy  in  Him 
where  no  other  sorrow  can  intrude.  And  yet 
all  the  while,  with  all  the  instinctive  value 
which  He  gave  to  them  for  their  own  sake, 
these  home  affections  all  are  ties  to  bind  Him 
to  humanity,  windows  through  which  He  looks 
into  the  depths  of  human  life,  interpretations 
to  His  soul  of  the  wider  brotherhood  in  the 
vaster  family. 

Surely  here  is  a  noble  indication  of  what  the 
family  affections  may  be  to  all  men. 

VIII.  184. 


To  Thee  our  full  humanit}^ — 
Its  joys  and  pains  belong; 

The  wrong  of  man  on  man  to  Thee 
Inflicts  a  deeper  wrong. 


Who  hates,  hates  Thee;  who  loves  becomes 

Therein  to  Thee  allied; 
All  sweet  accords  of  hearts  and  homes 

In  Thee  are  multiplied. 

Whittier. 


2i6  AUGUST    4. 


IF  human  sin  needs  a  humanity  to  judge  it, 
do  not  these  weak  and  struggling  efforts 
of  our  life  after  goodness  crave  some  sympathy 
to  which  they  can  appeal  as  they  go  up  to 
judgment?  What!  shall  I  send  these  poor 
pretences  of  holiness  up  to  heaven,  this  ineffec- 
tive virtue  which  is  not  a  being  good,  but  only 
a  trying  to  be  so, — shall  I  send  them  up  to  lay 
themselves  against  the  fiery  purity  of  God  and 
be  burnt  off  like  spots  of  blemish  from  the 
white  light  of  His  perfectness  ?  Oh,  no,  give 
me  a  man!  Though  He  be  perfect,  He  will 
know  what  human  imperfection  is.  .  .  .  He 
will  comprehend  what  my  poor  struggles 
mean.  ...  If  we  look  deep  enough,  we 
ought  to  feel,  every  time  when  we  see  a  little 
child  at  night  trustfully  laying  his  day's  life, 
made  up  of  faint  desires,  feeble  effort  and  con- 
tinual failures,  into  the  hands  of  God,  what  a 
blessed  thing  it  is  that  there  is  in  that  everlast- 
ing God  an  everlasting  Christ,  an  undying 
humanity,  which  will  take  that  day's  life  into 
a  brother's  hands  and  count  it  precious  with  all 
the  intelligence  of  sympathy.  vi.  322. 

Thou,  O  Elder  Brother,  who 

In  Thy  flesh  our  trial  knew, 

Thou  who  hast  been  touched  by  these. 

Our  most  sad  infirmities, 

Thou  alone  the  gulf  can  span 

In  the  dual  heart  of  man. 

And  between  the  soul  and  sense 

Reconcile  all  difference. 

Change  the  dream  of  me  and  mine 

For  the  truth  of  Thee  and  Thine. 

Whittier. 


AUGUST    5.  217 


TN  this  mixture  of  good  and  evil  which  we 
*  call  Man,  this  motley  and  medley  which  we 
call  human  character,  it  is  the  good  and  not 
the  evil  which  is  the  foundation  color  of  the 
whole.  Man  is  a  son  of  God  on  whom  the 
Devil  has  laid  his  hand,  not  a  child  of  the 
Devil  whom  God  is  trying  to  steal.  .  .  .  The 
great  truth  of  Redemption,  the  great  idea  of 
Salvation,  is  that  the  realm  belongs  to  Truth, 
that  the  Lie  is  everywhere  and  always  an 
intruder  and  a  foe.  He  came  in,  therefore  he 
may  be  driven  out.  When  he  is  driven  out, 
and  man  is  purely  man,  then  man  is  saved. 
It  is  the  glory  and  the  preciousness  of  the  first 
mysterious,  poetic  chapters  of  Genesis  that 
they  are  radiant  all  through  their  sadness  with 
that  truth. 

V.  9,  10. 

'T  were  glorious,  no  doubt,  to  be 
One  of  the  strong-winged  hierarchy, 

Yet  I,  perhaps,  poor  earthly  clod, 
Could  I  forget  myself  in  God, 
Could  I  but  find  my  nature's  clue 
Simply  as  birds  and  blossoms  do. 
And  but  for  one  rapt  moment  know 
'Tis  Heaven  must  come,  not  we  must  go, 
Should  win  my  place  as  near  the  throne 
As  the  pearl-angel  of  its  zone. 

James  Russell  Lowell. 


2i8  AUGUST    6. 


And  He  went  up  into  a  mowitain  to  pray.  And 
as  He  prayed,  the  fashion  of  His  countetiance  was 
altered,  and  His  raifnent  was  white  and  glistering. 

Luke  ix.  2Z,  29. 

IN  Jesus  our  humanity  went  up  into  the 
mountain  and  was  transfigured.  It  shone 
with  Hght  there  on  the  cross.  Thenceforth, 
into  whatever  depths  of  selfishness  it  might 
descend,  it  carried  the  power  of  that  transfig- 
uration with  it.  In  its  certainty  that  He  who 
suffered  there  was  one  with  it  and  really  bore 
its  nature,  it  knew  that  not  to  be  selfish,  but 
to  be  unselfish,  was  its  true  life.  That  is  the 
reason  why  so  wonderfully,  through  all  the 
years  of  miserable  self-seeking  which  have 
come  since,  souls  everywhere  have  come  out 
under  the  power  of  that  cross  and  let  them- 
selves be  crucified  for  fellow-men,  and  why 
the  dream  of  a  world  glorious  with  mutual 
devotion  has  never  been  lost  out  of  men's 
hearts. 

Those  lives  of  self-devotion,  however  humble 
and  obscure  they  seem,  have  always  themselves 
the  same  power  which  belongs  to  the  sac- 
rifice of  Jesus.  They  too  throw  light  on 
darker  lives.  They  are  lesser  hill-tops  grouped 
around  the  great  mountain.  Such  lives  may 
we  live  in  any  little  world  where  God  has  set 
us!  VII.  345. 

But  we  would  be  of  those  who  do  Thy  will, 
And  unto  whom  Thou  dost  in  love  disclose 

The  brightness  of  Thy  face,  to  overfill 

Their  heart  with  sweetness,  we  would  be  of 
those.  Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


AUCxUST    7.  219 


And  Peter  answered  and  said  unto  Jesus ^ 
Master,  it  is  good  for  us  to  be  her'e. 

Matt.  ix.  5. 

TO  many,  if  not  to  all,  men's  lives  come 
such  splendid  moments  as  came  to  Peter 
on  the  mountain  of  the  Transfiguration.  .  .  . 
Once  on  a  certain  morning  you  felt  the  glory 
of  living,  and  the  misery  of  life  has  never 
since  that  been  able  quite  to  take  possession  of 
your  soul.  Once  you  knew  for  a  few  days 
what  was  the  delight  of  a  perfect  friendship. 
Once  you  saw  for  an  inspired  instant  the  idea 
of  your  profession  blaze  out  of  the  midst  of 
its  dull  drudgery.  Once,  just  for  a  glorious 
moment,  you  saw  the  very  truth  and  believed 
in  it  without  the  shadow  of  a  cloud.  .  .  . 
And  often  the  question  must  have  come, 
"What  do  they  mean?  What  value  may  I 
give  to  these  transfiguration  times  ?  " 

The  first  instinct  is  to  feel  that  they  are  not 
complete  and  final;  that  they  point  to  some- 
thing which  is  yet  to  come;  that  they  are  the 
premonitions,  the  anticipations,  of  a  fuller 
condition,  in  which  that  which  they  manifested 
fitfully  and  transiently  shall  become  the  con- 
stant and  habitual  possession  of  the  life. 

VII.  338,  339- 
Nothing  resting  in  its  own  completeness 

Can  have  worth  or  beauty,  but  alone 

As  it  leads  and  tends  to  further  sweetness, 

Fuller,  higher,  deeper  than  its  own. 

Life  is  only  bright  when  it  proceedeth 
Toward  a  truer,  deeper  life  above  ; 

Human  love  is  sweetest  when  it  leadeth 
To  a  more  divine  and  perfect  Love. 

ADELAmE  A.  Procter. 


220  AUGUST    8. 


Ye  shall  know  them  by  their  fruits. 

Matt.  vii.  i6. 


CONDUCT  is  the  mouth-piece  of  character. 
What  a  man  is  declares  itself  through 
what  he  does.  .  .  .  Character  without  con- 
duct is  like  the  lips  without  the  trumpet,  whose 
whispers  die  upon  themselves  and  do  not  stir 
the  world.  Conduct  without  character  is  like 
the  trumpet  hung  up  in  the  wind  which  whistles 
through  it,  and  means  nothing.  The  world 
has  a  right  to  demand  that  all  which  claims  to 
be  character  should  utter  itself  through  con- 
duct which  can  be  seen  and  heard.  The 
world  has  a  right  to  disallow  all  claims  of 
character  which  do  not  utter  themselves  in 
conduct.  "  It  may  be  real, — it  may  be  good," 
the  world  has  a  right  to  say,  "but  I  cannot 
know  it  or  test  it;  and  I  am  sure  that  how- 
ever good  and  real  it  is,  it  is  deprived  of  the 
condition  of  the  best  life  and  growth,  which  is 
activity." 

V.  308,  309. 


Therefore  love  and  believe;  for  the  works  will 

follow  spontaneous. 
Even  as  day  does  the  sun:  the  Right  from  the 

Good  is  an  offspring. 
Love  in  a  bodily  shape;  and  Christian  works 

are  no  more  than 
Animate  Love  and  Faith,  as  flowers  are  the 

animate  spring-tide. 

Longfellow. 


AUGUST   9.  221 


We  are  debtors,  not  to  the  fleshy  to  live  after  the 
flesh. — Rom.  viii.  12. 

SELF-MORTIFICATION,  self-sacrifice,  is 
not  the  first  or  final  law  of  life.  You  are 
right  when  you  think  that  these  appetites  and 
passions  were  not  put  into  you  merely  to  be 
killed,  and  that  the  virtue  which  only  comes  by 
their  restraint  is  a  poor,  colorless,  and  feeble 
thing.  You  are  right  in  thinking  that  not  to 
restrain  yourself  and  to  refrain  from  doing,  but 
to  utter  yourself,  to  act,  to  do,  is  the  purpose 
of  your  being  in  the  world.  Only,  this  is  not 
the  self  you  are  to  utter,  these  are  not  the  acts 
you  are  to  do.  There  is  a  part  in  you  made  to 
think  deeply,  made  to  feel  nobly,  made  to  be 
charitable  and  chivalric,  made  to  worship,  to 
pity,  and  to  love.  You  are  not  uttering  your- 
self while  you  keep  that  better  self  in  chains 
and  only  let  these  lower  passions  free.  Let  me 
renew  those  nobler  powers,  and  then  believe 
with  all  your  heart  and  might  that  to  send  out 
those  powers  into  the  intensest  exercise  is  the 
one  worthy  purpose  of  your  life.  You  will 
not  so  much  have  crushed  the  carnal  as  em- 
braced the  spiritual.  Christ  will  have  made 
you  free.  You  will  be  walking  in  the  Spirit, 
and  so  will  not  fulfil  the  lusts  of  the  flesh. 

L  364,  365. 

To  this  life  things  of  sense 

Make  their  pretence: 
In  the  other  angels  have  their  right  by  birth: 

Man  ties  them  both  alone. 

And  makes  them  one, 
With  the  one   hand   touching  heaven,  with  the 
oiher  earth.  George  Herbert. 


222  AUGUST    lo. 


Are  the  consolatio7is  of  God  small  with  thee  ? 

John  xv.  ii. 

THEY  do  not  take  your  sorrow  off;  and 
oh,  .  .  .  whatever  be  your  suffering,  I 
beg  you  to  learn  first  of  all  that  not  that,  not 
to  take  your  sorrow  off,  is  what  God  means, 
but  to  put  strength  into  you  that  you  may 
carry  it  as  the  tired  man,  who  has  drunk  the 
strength-giving  river,  lifts  up  his  burden  by 
the  river-bank  and  goes  singing  on  his  way. 
Be  sure  your  sorrow  is  not  giving  you  its 
best  .  .  .  unless  it  opens  to  you  ideas  that 
have  before  been  unfamiliar;  mostly  these 
three  ideas,  education,  spirituality,  immortal- 
ity. Those  ideas  are  the  keys  of  all  the  mys- 
teries of  life,  and  so  the  gateways  to  consola- 
tion. And  it  is  wonderful  to  see  how,  just  as 
soon  as  a  man  is  really  crushed  and  sorrowful, 
God  seems  by  every  avenue  to  be  offering 
those  great  ideas  for  that  man's  acceptance. 
He  seems  to  write  them  on  the  sky,  to  whisper 
them  from  every  movement  of  the  commonest 
machinery  of  life,  to  fill  books  with  them  that 
never  seemed  to  know  anything  of  them  be- 
fore, to  make  the  vacant  house  and  the  full 
grave  declare  them.  You  are  a  child  of  God 
whom  He  is  training.  You  have  a  soul  which 
is  your  true  value.  You  are  to  live  forever. 
Know  these  truths.  By  them  triumph  over 
the  sorrow  that  He  cannot  take  away,  and  be 
consoled.  I.  m. 

Trusting:  that  sorrow  is  but  love's  disguise, 
And  all  withholding  but  another  way 

Of  making  richer  by  what  love  denies— 
So  grows  the  soul  a  little,  day  by  day. 

Mary  C.  Sewaru. 


AUGUST    II.  223 

Blessed  be  God,  .  .  .  the  Father  of  mercies,  and 
the  God  of  all  comfort ;  who  comforteth  us  m  all 
our  tribulatio?i,  that  we  may  be  able  to  co??ifort 
them  which  are  in  any  trouble,  by  the  co??ifort 
wherewith  we  are  comforted  of  God, 

2  Cor.  i.  3,  4. 

THE  power  of  Paul  or  of  any  man  to  grasp 
and  realize  this  high  idea  of  the  pur- 
pose of  the  help  which  God  sends,  shows  a 
very  clear  understanding  that  it  is  really  God 
who  sends  the  help.  Indeed,  I  think  no  man 
can  really  mount  up  to  the  idea  that  God  truly 
and  personally  cares  for  him  enough  to  reach 
down  and  turn  the  bitterness  of  his  cup  to 
sweetness,  without  being,  as  it  were,  com- 
pelled to  look  beyond  himself.  All  strong 
emotions,  all  really  great  ideas,  outgo  our 
individual  life,  and  make  us  feel  our  human 
nature.  If  you  are  not  sure  that  any  mercy 
comes  to  you  from  God;  if,  whatever  pious 
words  you  use  about  it,  the  recovery  of  your 
health,  or  the  saving  of  your  fortune,  seems 
to  you  a  piece  of  luck,  some  good  thing  which 
has  dropped  down  upon  you  from  the  clouds, 
then  you  may  be  meanly  and  miserably  selfish 
about  it.  You  shut  it  up  within  the  jealous 
walls  of  your  own  life.  It  is  a  light  which  you 
have  struck  out  for  yourself,  and  may  burn  in 
your  own  lantern.  But  if  the  light  came 
down  from  God,  if  He  gave  you  this  blessing, 
it  is  too  big  for  you  to  keep  for  yourself.  He 
must  have  meant  it  for  a  wider  circle  than  your 
little  life  can  cover,  and  it  breaks  through 
your  selfishness  to  find  for  itself  the  mission 
that  it  claims.  I.  3. 


2124  AUGUST    12. 


Lord,  show  us  the  Father. — John  xiv.  8. 

IV low  we  are  very  apt  to  take  it  for  granted, 
^  ^  that  however  we  may  differ  in  our  defini- 
tions and  our  belief  of  the  deity  of  the  Son  and 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  we  are  all  at  one,  there 
can  be  and  there  is  no  hesitation,  about  the 
deity  of  the  Father.  God  is  divine.  God  is 
God.  And  no  doubt  we  do  all  assent  in  words 
to  such  a  belief;  but  when  we  think  what  we 
mean  by  that  word  God;  when  we  remember 
what  we  mean  by  "  Father,"  namely,  the  first 
source  and  the  final  satisfaction  of  a  depend- 
ent nature  .  .  .  think  how  many  of  us  look 
for  neither  of  them  any  farther  back  or  any 
farther  on  than  this  routine  in  which  we  live. 
We  devote  ourselves  to  it;  we  deck  it  with  all 
the  graces  we  can  bestow  upon  it,  because 
there  is  no  higher  fatherhood  present 'to  our 
thoughts,  because  we  know  no  loftier  God. 
Now  to  such  a  man  what  is  the  first  revelation 
that  you  want  to  make  ?  Is  it  not  the  divinity 
of  the  Father  ? 

I.  234,  235- 

With  gentle  swiftness  lead  me  on, 

Dear  God,  to  see  Thy  face; 
And  meanwhile  in  my  narrow  heart 

Oh,  make  Thyself  more  space! 

Faber. 


AUGUST    13.  225 


Through  Him  ive  both  have  access  by  one  Spirit 
unto  the  Father. — Ephes.  ii.  18. 

EVERY  act  is  made  up  of  a  purpose,  a 
method,  and  a  power.  And  so  the  pur- 
pose and  the  method  and  the  power  are  here. 
What  is  the  purpose  or  the  end?  "To  the 
Father  we  all  have  access."  What  is  the 
method  ?  "  Through  Christ  Jesus."  What  is 
the  power?  "By  the  Spirit."  .  .  .  In  this 
one  total  act,  the  end,  the  method,  and  the 
power  are  distinguishable,  .  .  .  and  what  is 
more,  each  is  distinctly  personal.  .  .  .  This 
salvation,  which  is  all  the  work  of  God,  first, 
last,  and  midmost,  has  its  divine  personalities 
distinct  for  its  end  and  its  method  and  its 
power.  It  is  salvation  to  the  Father,  through 
the  Son,  and  by  the  Spirit.  The  salvation  is 
all  one;  yet  in  it  method,  end,  and  power  are 
recognizable.      It  is  a  three  in  one. 

The  end  of  the  human  salvation  is  "access 
to  the  Father."  That  is  the  first  truth  of  our 
religion — that  the  source  of  all  is  meant  to  be 
the  end  of  all,  that  as  we  all  came  forth  from 
a  divine  Creator,  so  it  is  into  divinity  that  we 
are  to  return  and  find  our  final  rest  and  satis- 
faction, not  in  ourselves,  nor  in  one  another, 
but  in  the  omnipotence,  the  omniscience,  the 
perfectness,  and  the  love  of  God. 

I.  231,  234. 

Enough  for  me  to  feel  and  know 

That  He  in  whom  the  cause  and  end. 

The  past  and  future,  meet  and  blend,   .   .   . 

Guards  not  archangel  feet  alone. 

But  deigns  to  guard  and  keep  my  own. 

Whittier. 


226  AUGUST    14. 


"  IV  A  AN  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but 
IVl  by  every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of 
the  mouth  of  God," — by  every  word,  from 
the  gentlest  to  the  severest,  that  the  eternal 
lips  know  how  to  speak.  .  .  .  And  remember 
this  is  not  a  doctrine  for  the  world's  heroes 
and  martyrs  only;  it  is  for  every  living  soul 
when  it  is  called  on  to  give  up  the  lower  that 
it  may  attain  the  higher  life.  It  is  for  the  man 
wiio  has  to  give  up  his  dollar  that  he  may  keep 
his  honesty,  to  give  up  a  doubt  that  he  may 
win  a  truth.  It  is  for  the  young  man  who  has 
to  give  up  a  fascinating  acquaintance  that  he 
may  keep  his  purity,  to  let  go  a  tempting 
chance  of  business  because  there  is  something 
about  its  associations  that  is  going  to  degrade 
his  life  .  .  .  for  the  woman  who  abandons 
worldliness  to  serve  her  God,  who  turns  her 
back  on  fashion  and  its  wretched  littleness  that 
she  may  go  up  into  eternal  life.  .  .  .  Wher- 
ever truth  and  interest  conflict,  wherever  the 
desire  to  be  popular,  to  be  rich,  to  be  wise,  to 
be  anything  else,  has  to  be  cut  away  and  cast 
behind  a  man  that  he  may  go  on  unhindered  to 
be  good  and  true  and  holy,  there  the  law  of 
the  martyrs  and  the  heroes,  there  the  law  of  the 
Christ,  whose  meat  was  to  finish  His  Father's 
work,  and  who  for  the  eating  that  eternal  meat 
fasteth  from  the  bread  that  perisheth,  comes 
down  and  proves  itself  the  law  of  all  true  life. 

VII.  162. 

With  love  for  all  around 
Our  days  and  hours  to  fill: 

Thus  be  it  ever  found 

Our  meat  to  do  Thy  will! 

Lucy  Larcom. 


AUGUST    15.  227 


God  is  faithful^  who  will  ?iot  suffer  you  to  be 
tempted  above  that  ye  are  able  :  but  will  with  the 
temptation  also  make  a  way  to  escape,  that  ye  may 
be  able  to  bear  it. — i  Cor.  x.   13. 


ONLY  those  temptations  which  we  encounter 
on  the  way  of  duty,  in  the  path  of  con- 
secration, only  those  has  our  Lord  promised 
us  that  we  shall  conquer.  He  sends  us  out  to 
live  and  work  for  Him.  The  chances  of  sin 
which  we  meet  while  that  divine  design  of  life, 
the  life  and  work  for  Him,  is  clear  before  us, 
shall  not  hurt  us.  When  we  forget  that  de- 
sign, our  arm  withers,  our  immunity  is  gone. 
This  is  what  we  really  mean,  what  we  often 
put  blindly  enough,  when  we  ask  whether  such 
a  man  is  a  religious  man  or  not.  We  mean,  or 
we  ought  to  mean,  whether  religion  or  the  ser- 
vice of  God  is  present  with  him  as  a  continual 
purpose;  not  whether  he  is  ever  tempted;  not 
whether  he  ever  sins;  we  know  the  answers  to 
those  questions  well  enough;  but  whether  be- 
hind all  the  temptation,  under  all  the  sin,  his 
soul  is  still  set  toward  God  with  genuine  and 
strong  devotion.  If  it  is,  we  know  that  he 
must  come  out  safe. 

IV.  340. 


The  lightning  and  thunder. 

They  go  and  they  come; 
But  the  stars  and  the  stillness 

Are  always  at  home. 

George  Macdonald. 


228  AUGUST    i6. 


IN  all  artificial  religiousness,  all  that  is  not 
bound  to  life,  educated  through  life,  and 
uttering  itself  in  life,  there  are  gaps  and 
breaks.  It  is  the  sadness  of  every  Christian 
experience, — the  loveless  time  between  the 
moments  of  ecstatic  apprehension;  the  total 
secularness  between  the  points  of  religious  per- 
formance. .  .  .  The  Spirit  of  God,  expected 
only  at  certain  seasons  and  by  certain  doors, 
finds  sometimes  those  doors  closed,  and  no 
welcome  waiting  Him  at  any  other.  It  is  only 
when  we  know  that  any  door  capable  of  admit- 
ting any  influence  may  admit  the  blessed  influ- 
ence of  God,  only  then  can  we  be  hopeful  of 
keeping  the  breadth  and  variety  of  life,  and 
at  the  same  time  of  always  receiving  the  cul- 
ture and  the  grace  of  God.  Let  only  the 
western  shutters  be  open,  and  we  shall  see  only 
the  western  sun.  Let  all  the  windows  be  open 
and  expectant,  and  from  sunrise  round  to  sun- 
set there  shall  be  no  interval  in  the  unbroken 
light.  The  sun,  in  the  course  of  the  day,  will 
look  into  them  all. 


X.  27. 


Light  of  the  world!  undimming  and  unsetting, 

Oh,  shine  each  mist  away! 
Banish  the  fear,  the  falsehood,  and  the  fretting, 

Be  our  unchanging  day! 

HORATIUS    BONAR. 


AUGUST    17.  229 

All  of  you  are  the  children  of  the  Most  High. 

Ps.  Ixxxii.  6. 

TT  seems  to  me  absolutely  certain  that  if 
-^  there  is  in  man  a  real  essential  belonging 
with  God,  if  in  a  true  and  indestructible  sense 
he  is  God's  child,  then  the  reaching  out  of  the 
child's  soul  after  the  Father's  soul,  of  the 
human  soul  after  the  divine  soul,  must  be  a 
perpetual  fact,  it  can  never  be  stopped.  .  .  . 
Agnosticism,  Nescience,  Pessimism,  Secularism 
must  be  all  temporary  phenomena;  none  of 
them  can  be  the  settled  and  permanent  condi- 
tion of  the  human  soul  if  man  is  the  child  of 
God.  If  he  is  not,  then  one  is  ready  to  accept 
whatever  comes;  for  who  cares  whether  a  beast 
that  is  but  a  beast  dreams  that  he  is  an  angel, 
or  with  a  bitter  wisdom  knows  his  beasthood  ? 

III.  122. 


If  thou  hast  wanderings  in  the  wilderness, 
And  find'st  not  Sinai,  'tis  thy  soul  is  poor: 
There   towers   the   mountain   of  the  Voice  no 

less. 
Which    whoso   seeks   shall    find;    but    he    who 

bends 
Intent  on  manna  still  and  mortal  ends, 
Sees  it  not,  neither  hears  its  thundered  lore. 
James  Russell  Lowell. 


230  AUGUST    i8. 


WHEN  we  see  the  man  in  great  trouble  or 
great  joy  grown  suddenly  religious — the 
glad  "Thank  God!"  or  the  agonized  "God 
help  me!  "  bursting  out  of  unaccustomed  lips, 
it  does  not  mean  desperation,  and  it  does  not 
mean  hypocrisy.  It  means  that  for  once  in 
that  man's  life  the  true  soil  of  his  nature  has 
been  laid  bare,  and  it  has  claimed  the  divine 
relations  for  which  it  was  made;  just  as  you 
strip  the  layer  of  rock  off  from  a  bed  of  earth 
that  lay  below  it,  and  in  a  day  the  newly  ex- 
posed earth  is  sprouting  all  over  with  grass 
that  you  never  planted.  It  has  caught  the 
grass  seeds  out  of  the  air.  The  wandering 
birds  have  brought  them  to  it.  It  has  found 
them  treasured  in  itself.  It  puts  forth  upon 
them  its  own  simple  nature,  and  grows  green 
from  side  to  side.  The  man's  hard  surface 
may  close  over  when  the  great  agony  or  the 
great  joy  is  past,  and  all  may  seem  just  as  be- 
fore, but  he  who  once  has  known  the  move- 
ments of  this  new  capacity  never  can  think  of 
himself  as  he  was  used  to  think.  .  .  .  He 
may  go  on  living  a  most  earthly  life,  but  he 
knows  forever  that  there  is  a  spiritual  heaven 
and  a  spiritual  hell.  He  never  can  say  of 
himself  again,  "  I  have  no  spiritual  capac- 
ity." .  .  .  He  has  looked  upon  God,  and  his 
soul  can  never  forget  how  it  answered  when  it 
met  the  gaze  of  the  love  and  power  which  made 
it,  and  for  which  it  was  made.  i.  152. 

For  God^  who  comma?ided  the  light  to  shine  out 
of  darkness^  hath  shined  in  our  hearts,  to  give  the 
light  of  the  knowledge  of  the  glory  of  God. 

2  Cor.  iv.  6. 


AUGUST    19.  231 


Go  into  the  city,  and  it  shall  be  told  thee  what 
thou  must  do. — Acts  ix.  6. 

'Tis  here,  O  pitying  Christ,  where  Thee  I  seek, 
Here  where  the  strife  is  fiercest,  where  the  sun 
Beats  down   upon  the  highwa}^  thronged  with 

men, 
And  in  the  raging  mart.      Oh,  deeper  lead 
My  soul  into  the  living  world  of  souls 
Where  Thou  dost  move! 

Richard  Watson  Gilder. 

THE  final  spiritual  state  of  man  is  pictured 
as  a  heavenly  city,  a  place  of  a  thousand 
relationships  springing  out  of  his  human  na- 
ture. The  training-place  of  his  spiritual  life 
must  be  a  city,  a  place  of  many  relationships 
as  well.  .  .  .  Continuity,  variety,  influence, 
reality — these  are  the  things  after  which  our 
spiritual  life  is  hungering  and  thirsting.  To 
grow  spasmodic,  monotonous,  uninfluential, 
unreal,  is  not  this  the  familiar  death  of  the 
spiritual  life  that  saddens  many  a  closet  and 
many  a  church  ? 

I  have  not  said  superficially  that  to  labor  is 
to  pray.  Prayer  lies  behind  all;  but  I  am  sure 
that  by  the  finite  act  of  labor  the  infinite  act 
of  prayer  is  helped  to  its  completeness,  as  the 
soul  grows  by  the  body's  ministries  to  its  per- 
fect life.  Labor  which  is  conscious  of  minis- 
tering to  prayer — that  is,  of  giving  the  soul 
deeper  perceptions  of  God  and  of  itself — grows 
proud  of  and  rich  in  its  mission.  It  catches 
much  of  the  loftiness  of  prayer  itself.  It 
goes  enthusiastically  and  buoyantly  upon  its 
way,  sowing  the  spiritual  life.  x.  32. 


232  AUGUST    20. 


HAVE  you  grown  weary  of  looking  for  any 
signs  of  promise  in  this  dull  mass  of  fel- 
low-men and  withdrawn  yourself  into  some 
luxury  of  self-culture,  feeling  as  if  what  you 
had  and  were  was  too  good  to  be  wasted  upon 
such  creatures  as  these  sick  and  poor  and  igno- 
rant ?  You  must  be  rescued  from  this  proud 
conceit,  not  simply  by  counting  yourself 
lower,  but  by  valuing  more  highly  the  spiritual 
natures  of  these  fellow-men.  You  must  value 
them  as  He  valued  them,  who  gave  His  life 
for  them,  before  you  can  be  as  humble  in  their 
presence  as  He  was;  and  that  can  come  only 
by  making  yourself  their  servant.  Only  he 
who  puts  on  the  garment  of  humility  finds  how 
worthily  it  clothes  his  life.  Only  he  who 
dedicates  himself  to  the  spiritual  service  of 
his  brethren,  simply  because  his  Master  tells 
him  they  are  worth  it,  comes  to  know  how  rich 
those  natures  of  his  brethren  are,  how  richly 
they  are  worth  the  total  giving  of  himself  to 
them.  I.  348. 

And  know  that  pride 
Howe'er  disguised  in  its  own  majesty, 
Is  littleness;  that  he  who  feels  contempt 
For  any  thing,  hath  faculties 
Which  he  hath  never  used ;  that  thought  with  him 
Is  in  its  infancy.      The  man  whose  eye 
Is  ever  on  himself  doth  look  on  one, 
The  least  of  Nature's  works,  one  who  might 

move 
The  wise  man  to  that  scorn  which  wisdom  holds 
Unlawful,  ever.      Oh,  be  wiser,  thou! 
Instructed  that  true  knowledge  leads  to  love. 

Wordsworth. 


AUGUST    21.  233 


ALL  life  tends  to  encrust  itself,  to  imprison 
itself  within  itself,  and  its  crust  needs  to 
be  constantly  broken  and  returned  into  the 
general  mass  out  of  which  it  was  formed,  in 
order  that  the  best  influences  may  be  received. 
Ever  there  must  be  a  return  to  a  primitive  sim- 
plicity, to  a  condition  of  first  principles,  in 
which  the  power  to  receive  may  be  freshened 
and  renewed.  Do  you  not  recognize  that  ?  It 
is  part  of  the  old  craving  to  begin  the  game  of 
life  again.  It  is  not  that  life  has  been  miser- 
able, or  has  wholly  failed,  but  it  has  lost  sim- 
plicity. ...  Is  not  that  craving  for  a  return 
to  simplicity  just  what  St.  Paul  has  in  his  mind 
when  he  says  of  the  man  whom  he  wants  to 
see  made  wise,  "  Let  him  become  a  fool  "  ?  Is 
it  not  just  this  getting  rid  of  the  crust  of  life, 
in  order  that  life  itself  may  be  open  to  the  sun- 
shine ?  This  is  what  he  means  by  his  strange 
word  "  fool,"  I  think.  It  may  have  some  ref- 
erence to  what  the  world  will  think  of  him 
who  accepts  the  Gospel  in  its  simpleness;  but 
more  than  that,  I  think  it  also  must  refer  to 
that  condition  of  simplicity  to  which  the  na- 
ture must  return  before  Christ  with  all  His 
great  enlightenment  can  take  possession  of  it. 

VI.  160,  161. 

Wisdom  ofttimes  is  nearer  when  we  stoop 
Than  when  we  soar. 

Wordsworth. 


234  AUGUST    22. 


And  when  He  was  come  near  He  beheld  the  city^ 
and  wept  over  it. — Luke  xix.  41. 

WE  may  picture  the  approach  of  Jesus  to 
our  souls  under  the  figure  of  His  en- 
trance into  Jerusalem.  He  comes  to  one  of 
us  as  He  came  to  that  city  of  His  and  of  His 
Father's.  Think  how  sacred  it  was  to  Him. 
Think  how  He  loved  it.  Think  what  vast 
precious  possibilities  he  could  see  sleeping  be- 
hind its  brilliant  walls.  There  was  His  Father's 
temple.  There  was  the  whole  machinery  for 
making  the  complete  manhood.  And  yet  there 
was  defiance,  selfishness,  unspirituality,  and 
cruelty — the  house  of  prayer  turned  into  the 
den  of  thieves.  O  my  dear  friends,  if  Christ, 
as  He  comes  to  any  one  of  us  to  offer  us  His 
salvation,  never  forgets  for  a  moment  what  we 
might  be  in  the  sight  of  w^hat  we  are,  and 
never  forgets  for  a  moment  what  we  are  in  the 
vision  of  what  we  might  be;  if  He  always  sees 
our  sins  in  the  light  of  our  chances,  and  our 
chances  against  the  shadow  of  our  sins,  then 
what  Jerusalems  we  must  be  to  Him!  He 
loves  us  as  He  loved  that  city,  with  a  love  full 
of  reproach  and  accusation.  He  stops  as  He 
comes  in  sight  of  us,  and  "beholds  the  city, 
and  weeps  over  it."  I  can  think  of  no  picture 
which  so  lets  me  into  the  very  depths  of  the 
soul  of  Christ,  as  He  approaches  a  soul  of 
man  which  He  longs  to  save,  as  that  which 
depicts  Him  stopping  on  the  Mount  of  Olives, 
where  Jerusalem  first  comes  into  sight,  and 
beholding  the  city,  and  weeping  over  it. 

VII.  212. 


AUGUST    2T,.  235 

"WE  must  be  born  again,"  said  Jesus.  Pon- 
I  der  these  divine  words  of  His,  and  ever 
more  and  more  they  seem  immeasurably  deep. 
To  think  of  them  is  like  gazing  into  endless 
space.  But  one  great  truth  which  they  assur- 
edly contain  is  this:  that  life  for  any  man  is 
not  complete  until  a  deeper  and  a  higher  life 
is  put  beneath  and  over  the  mere  life  of  ac- 
tion, into  which  the  soul  can  perpetually  re- 
treat, and  on  whose  breast  the  life  of  action 
can  be  buoyantly  upborne.  There  are  men 
who  the  world  thinks  are  always  failing  who 
are  themselves  conscious  of  a  success  which  is 
a  truer  truth  to  them  than  all  their  failures. 
They  are  the  men  who  have  been  born  again, 
and  who  carry  the  new  life  underneath  the  old 
life  all  the  while.  The  Master  of  that  new 
life  is  Christ.  The  soul  worried  and  torn  with 
disappointments,  haunted  by  the  taunts  of  fel- 
low-souls which  tell  it  it  has  failed,  suspicious 
of  itself,  yet  keeping  still  its  faithfulness  and 
consecration,  goes  to  Him,  to  Christ,  and  lo! 
it  finds  a  new  fact  there.  Below  its  failures 
He  has  for  it  success.  Through  all  its  deaths 
He  brings  out  for  it,  as  He  brought  out  for 
Himself,  life!  "  I  too,  "  He  says,  "  seemed  to 
fail,  but  in  my  Father  I  succeeded."  "You 
shall  share  with  me.  Ye  are  they  which  have 
continued  with  Me  in  My  temptations.  And  I 
appoint  unto  you  a  kingdom,  as  My  Father 
hath  appointed  unto  Me." 

Whatever  failures  He  may  have  for  us  to 
pass  through  first,  may  He  bring  us  all  at  last 
to  that  success  in  Him. 

VII.  207. 


236  AUGUST    24. 


Beloved  of  God,  called  to  be  saints. —  i  Cor.  i.  2. 

IT  is  out  of  the  very  heart  of  the  discipleship 
that  the  apostleship  proceeds.  .  .  .  Jesus 
calls  all  His  disciples  together,  and  out  of 
them  He  chooses  twelve.  It  is  no  inattentive 
idlers  hanging  on  the  outskirts  of  the  group 
who  listen  to  Him,  that  he  thinks  good  enough 
to  go  and  carry  His  message.  It  is  they  who 
have  listened  to  Him  longest,  and  most  intel- 
ligently, and  most  lovingly.  It  is  Simon  and 
Andrew  his  brother,  James  and  John,  Philip 
and  Bartholomew,  Matthew  and  Thomas;  it  is 
men  like  these,  the  very  heart  and  soul  of  the 
discipleship,  whom  he  selects  and  calls  apostles. 
And  so  it  always  is.  Always  it  is  the  best  of 
the  inward  life  of  anything,  that  which  lies  the 
closest  to  its  heart  and  is  the  fullest  of  its 
spirit,  which  flow^ers  into  the  outward  impulse 
which  comes  to  complete  its  life.  The  heart  of 
any  good  thing  is  catholic  and  expansive.  It 
claims  for  itself  the  world.  It  longs  to  give 
itself  away,  and  believes  in  the  capacity  of  all 
men  to  receive  it.  This  noble  and  beautiful 
truth,  whose  illustrations  are  everywhere,  was 
it  not  declared  by  Jesus  when  out  of  the 
choicest  heart  of  the  group  of  His  disciples, 
He  chose  His  apostles  ? 

IV.  154,  155,  156. 


The  footprints  of  the  Life  divine 
Which  marked  their  path  remain  in  thine; 
And  the  great  Life  transfused  in  theirs 
Awaits  thy  faith,  thy  love,  thy  prayers. 

Whittier. 


AUGUST    25.  237 


WHEN  I  see  the  noble  life  of  a  man  whose 
faith  I  believe  is  all  wrong,  or  is  wofully 
imperfect,  let  me  not  dare  to  say  that  his  is 
not  true  nobleness.  That  confuses  my  moral 
standards  and  throws  me  into  the  worst  hope- 
lessness. Let  the  sight  of  him  give  me  a  new 
faith  in  the  power  of  human  nature  to  be  gen- 
erous and  good,  which  can  break  through  the 
most  oppressive  circumstances,  and  open  into 
flower  out  of  the  most  barren  soils.  Let  it 
make  me  ashamed  of  the  small  show  of  gen- 
erosity and  goodness  which  I  with  my  better 
faith  am  able  to  display;  but  let  it  not  delude 
me  into  saying  that  what  I  know  is  my  better 
and  fuller  faith  is  a  thing  of  no  consequence ;  let 
it  not  hide  from  me  the  fact  that  my  infidel 
friend,  with  all  his  excellence,  would  be  a  finer 
and  nobler  man  than  his  own  present  self  if 
he  believed  in  the  truth  and  lived  in  the  power 
of  that  which  I  know  to  be  the  faith  of  God; 
let  it  not  lead  me  to  forget  that  the  real  power 
of  a  faith  is  to  be  estimated  not  by  the  influ- 
ence of  its  presence  or  its  absence  in  individ- 
uals who  may  be  exceptional,  but  by  its  effect 
upon  broad  stretches  of  human  history  over 
wide  areas  of  time  and  space. 

III.  215. 

Noble,  gentle,  self-forgetting. 
In  earth's  best  affections  rife. 

There  is  yet  one  thing  thou  lackest — 
'Tis  the  Spirit's  breath  of  life. 

Caroline  M.  Noel. 


238  AUGUST    26. 


Judge  righteous  judgment. — John  vii.  24. 

THE -great  question  after  all  is  this:  Shall 
we  judge  man  by  God  or  God  by  man  ? 
Does  light  and  understanding  flow  upward  or 
downward  ?  If  we  judge  man  by  God,  at  once 
we  have  true  and  discriminating  thoughts  of 
human  life.  We  have  absolute  standards. 
We  have  a  test  o^the  worth  of  all  we  do  or 
see.  But  if  we  judge  God  by  man,  we  only 
have  over  again  what  the  world  has  been  so 
full  of, — the  persuasions  of  self-interest,  the 
disbelief  in  absolute  righteousness,  the  chang- 
ing standards  of  the  changing  times.  Men 
have  gone  into  the  sanctuary  of  their  own 
selfishness,  the  sanctuary  of  theniselves,  and 
straightway  they  have  seemed  to  see  an  end 
of  God.  All  sense  of  a  supreme  and  awful 
Fatherhood  on  which  all  men  depended,  to 
which  all  action  must  go  back  for  judgment, 
has  been  lost.  No  higher  power  than  the 
human  has  seemed  to  be  moving  under  and 
giving  meaning  to  the  events  of  ordinary  life. 

VI.  124. 


If  He  could  doubt  on  His  triumphant  cross. 
How  much  more  I,  in  the  defeat  and  loss 
Of  seeing  all  my  selfish  dreams  fulfilled. 
Of  having  lived  the  very  life  I  willed, 
Of  being  all  that  I  desired  to  be  ? 
My   God,  my   God!  why  hast   Thou   forsaken 
me! 

W.    D.    HOWELLS. 


AUGUST    27.  239 


Blessed  is  the  man  that  endureth  temptation. 

James  i.  12. 

ANY  temptation  through  which  a  man  may 
go  without  yielding  is  a  glory  and  a 
strength.  But  shall  men  go  on  courting  temp- 
tations, finding  them  out,  and  running  into 
them,  so  that  they  may  come  out  glorious  and 
strong  ?  Look  at  Christ's  temptation.  There 
is  one  phrase  which  lights  up  the  whole  story. 
Christ  was  "  led  up  of  the  Spirit  to  be  tempted 
of  the  devil."  He  had  a  certain  work  to  do. 
That  work  was  not  His  own,  but  was  His 
Father's.  His  Father's  Spirit  guided  Him, 
and  told  Him  how  to  do  it.  .  .  .  We  too 
have  a  work,  a  duty.  ...  In  doing  our  duty 
the  Spirit  of  our  Father  may  lead  us  into 
temptation,  but  if  He  really  leads  us  there  He 
will  protect  us  there.  If  He  does  not  lead  us, 
if  we  go  of  our  own  self  will,  we  have  no 
pledge  of  His  protection.  ...  If  your  duty 
lies  right  by  the  gates  of  hell,  walk  there 
boldly,  and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail 
against  you.  If  your-duty  does  not  carry  you 
there,  you  cannot  be  too  fastidiously  careful 
for  your  purity,  to  keep  it  out  of  the  way  of 
every  lightest  zephyr  of  temptation.  Such  is 
the  manifest  difference  of  the  temptations  into 
which  God  leads  us  and  those  into  which  we 
run  ourselves.  VII.  135,  136. 

Evil  knowledge  acquired  in  one  wilful  mo- 
ment of  curiosity  may  harass  and  haunt  us  to 
the  end  of  our  time. 

And  how  after  the  end  of  our  time  ? 

Christina  G.  Rossetti 


240  AUGUST    28. 


In  all  points  tempted  like  as  we  are,  yet  without 
sin. — Heb.  iv.  15. 

THERE  will  come  a  world  where  there  will 
be  no  temptation — a  garden  with  no  ser- 
pent, a  city  with  no  sin.  The  harvest  day  will 
come  and  the  wheat  be  gathered  safe  into  the 
Master's  barn.  It  will  be  very  sweet  and  glo- 
rious. Our  tired  hearts  rest  on  the  promises 
with  peaceful  delight.  But  that  time  is  not 
yet.  Here  are  our  tempted  lives,  and  here, 
right  in  the  midst  of  us,  stands  our  tempted 
Saviour.  If  we  are  men  we  shall  meet  temp- 
tation as  He  met  it,  in  the  strength  of  the 
God  who  is  the  Father  of  whom  all  men  are 
children.  Every  temptation  that  attacks  us 
attacked  Him  and  was  conquered.  We  are 
fighting  with  a  defeated  enemy.  We  are  strug- 
gling for  a  victory  which  is  already  won.  That 
may  be  our  strength  and  assurance  as  we  re- 
call, whenever  our  struggle  becomes  hottest 
and  most  trying,  the  wonderful  and  blessed 
day  when  Jesus  was  "  led  up  of  the  Spirit  into 
the  wilderness  to  be  tempted  of  the  devil." 

VII.  148. 


"  Tempted  and  tried!  " 

Yet  the  Lord  shall  abide 
Thy  faithful  Redeemer,  thy  Keeper  and  Guide, 

Thy  Shield  and  thy  Sword, 

Thy  exceeding  Reward. 
Then  enough  for  the  servant  to  be  as  his  Lord! 

Frances  R.  Havergal. 


AUGUST    29.  241 


/  was  glad  when  they  said  unto  me.  Let  us  go 
up  to  the  house  of  the  Lord. — Ps.  cxxii.  i. 

SOMETHING  very  beautiful  and  grand, 
almost  awful  ...  is  the  yearly  gathering 
from  every  corner  of  the  land  to  the  sacred 
festival  meeting  at  Jerusalem.  The  land 
swarms  and  hums  with  movement.  The  men  of 
the  seashore  and  the  hills,  they  are  all  stirring. 
Every  pass  is  full,  every  hillside  is  alive.  .  .  . 
Every  man  brought  his  own  burden,  his  own 
sorrow,  his  own  sin.  The  problems  of  the 
year,  the  things  that  had  perplexed  them  as 
they  worked  in  the  fields  alone,  or  debated  with 
their  brethren,  or  met  the  troubles  of  the 
household — all  these  they  brought  to  offer  to 
the  Lord,  to  seek  solution  for  them  in  the 
higher,  calmer  atmosphere  of  the  temple. 
There  was  the  place  where  their  darkened  and 
frightened  understandings  would  find  light 
and  peace. 

It  is  an  old-time  picture.  We  do  not  go  to 
church  so  now.  .  .  .  But  woe  to  us  if  our 
more  rational  belief,  instead  of  lifting  all  the 
earth  up  to  heaven,  only  crowds  down  the  hill- 
tops and  leaves  no  heaven,  and  makes  our 
whole  earth  earthly. 

VI.  no,  III. 


The  Lord  anszuer  thee  in  the  day  of  trouble  ; 
The  name  of  the  God  of  Jacob  defend  thee  ; 
Se7id  thee  help  from  the  sanctuary^ 
And  strengthen  thee  out  of  Zion  ;  .   .   . 
Grant  thee  thy  heart' s  desire. 
And  fulfil  all  thy  jnind. 

Ps.  XX.  I,  2,  4. 


242  AUGUST    30. 


//  was  too  painful  for  me,  until  I  we?it  into  the 
Sanctuary  of  God ;  then  understood  I  the  end  of 
these  men. — Ps.  Ixxiii.  15,  17. 

HOW  old  the  bewilderments  of  the  world 
are!  .  .  .  Here,  almost  three  thousand 
years  ago,  is  a  poor  man  who  .  .  .  has  been 
puzzled  because  the  ungodly  were  rich,  as  if 
riches  were  the  appropriate  premium  of  good- 
ness; but  when  he  comes  to  stand  with  God  all 
that  is  altered.  He  comes  in  sight  of  larger 
circles  of  bliss.  He  sees  that  God  has  other 
rewards  to  give  His  chosen  besides  these  little 
trinkets.  ...  So  long  as  he  knows  no  higher 
happiness  than  prosperity,  it  puzzles  him  that 
the  bad  should  have  it.  So  soon  as  he  comes 
to  know  the  infinitely  higher  joy  of  company 
with  God,  and  sees  that  that  can  be  given  only 
to  the  good, — "  without  holiness  no  man  can 
see  the  Lord," — it  no  more  troubles  him  that 
bad  men  should  have  the  poor  counterfeit  of 
happiness,  than  it  troubles  the  solid  merchant, 
sitting  in  his  houseful  of  plain  and  solid  com- 
fort, to  see  a  miserable  fop  strut  by  in  cheap 
and  gaudy  finery  making  believe  and  perhaps 
thinking  that  he  is  rich. 

VI.  109. 


Happier  he  whose  inward  sight. 
Stayed  on  his  subtile  thought, 
Shuts  his  sense  on  toys  of  time, 
To  vacant  bosoms  brought. 

Emerson. 


AUGUST   31.  243 


And  Is7'ael  saw  the  Egyptians  dead  upon  the 
seashore. — Ex.  xiv.  30. 

DO  we  believe  in  the  death  of  our  Egyptian  ? 
What  is  your  Egyptian  ?      Some  passion 
of  the  flesh  or  of  the  mind  ? 

It  was  on  the  farther  shore  of  the  Red  Sea 
that  the  Egyptian  pursuers  of  the  Israelites  lay 
dead.  It  was  when  the  people  of  God  had 
genuinely  undertaken  the  journey  to  the  land 
that  God  had  given  them,  that  the  grasp  of 
their  enemy  gave  way  and  the  dead  hands  let 
them  go.  You  must  go  forth  into  a  new  land, 
into  the  ambition  of  a  higher  life, — then, 
when  he  tries  to  follow  you  there,  he  per- 
ishes. .  .  .  Not  merely  by  trying  not  to  be 
selfish,  but  by  entering  into  the  new  joy  of 
unselfish  consecration,  so  only  shall  you  kill 
your  selfishness.  When  you  are  vigorously 
trying  to  serve  your  fellow-men,  the  last  chance 
that  you  will  be  unjust  or  cruel  to  them  will 
disappear.  When  you  are  full  of  enthusiasm 
for  truth,  the  cold  hands  of  falsehood  will  let 
you  go.  .  .  .  Seek  not  the  same  low  things  by 
higher  means;  seek  higher  things,  and  the  low 
means  will  know  that  they  cannot  hold  you 
their  slave. 

VI.  65,  66,  67. 


Nor  can  I  count  him  happiest  who  has  never 
Been   forced   with   his  own  hand  his  chains  to 

sever. 
And  for  himself  find  out  the  way  divine. 

James  Russell  Lowell. 


244  SEPTEMBER    i. 

OVER  a  broad  open  plain  there  blows  a 
strong  steady  wind.  It  never  stops,  it 
never  changes.  All  over  the  plain  there  are 
men  and  women  on  their  journeys.  Hear  them 
cry  out.  "This  wind,  this  dreadful  wind!" 
cries  one,  all  out  of  breath  and  gasping. 
"  How  bitter  it  is,  how  cruel,  how  it  hates 
me!"  "  This  wind,  this  blessed  wind!  "  cries 
another,  within  hail  of  him.  "  How  kind  it  is, 
how  helpful,  how  it  loves  me!  "  Are  there 
two  winds,  or  has  the  one  fickle  wind  its  favor- 
ites ?  No,  the  one  constant  wind  is  blowing 
steadily  and  is  no  respecter  of  persons;  but 
one  man  has  set  his  face  against  it  and  the 
other  man  is  walking  with  it. 

Through  this  great  open  world  moves  God 
like  a  strong  wind  or  spirit,  finding  out  all  the 
public  and  the  secret  places  of  the  life  of 
man.  ,  .  .  But  while  your  brother  at  your  side 
is  full  of  the  sense  of  God's  love,  to  you  God 
seems  the  hindrance  of  your  life;  His  right- 
eousness defeats  your  plans,  His  purity  rebukes 
your  lust,  His  nature  and  being  smite  you  in 
the  face  like  a  blast  that  blows  bitter  and  cold 
from  a  far-off  judgment  day.  Does  God  hate 
you  and  love  your  brother  ?  No,  He  loves 
you  both:  but  you  with  your  disobedience 
are  setting  yourself  against  His  love.  You 
must  turn  round.  IV.  312,  313. 

The  blast  that  smites  thee,  face  and  breast. 

Is  God's  clear  voice  to  thee: 
*'  This  way  is  neither  joy  nor  rest, — 

Turn,  turn,  and  go  with  me!  " 

Julia  Wood. 


SEPTEMBER   2.  245 

Lead  me  in  Thy  truth  a?id  teach  vie  j  for  Thou 
art  the  God  of  my  salvation. — Ps.  xxv.  5. 

|\T0  familiarity  of  religion,  no  presentation 
^  ^  of  it  as  a  regulative  force,  no  offer  by 
Christ  of  Himself  as  the  friend  of  daily  life, 
must  seem  to  us  to  depreciate  the  power  of 
our  salvation  or  make  it  appear  to  us  other 
than  the  touch  of  God.  There  will  come  to 
you  hours  of  great  exaltation;  you  will  go  up 
to  mountain-tops  of  vision.  The  Divine  Voice 
will  speak  to  you  out  of  the  sun  and  out  of 
the  cloud.  Those  will  come  in  their  time  as  it 
is  best.  But  let  no  experience  and  no  expec- 
tation of  them  make  you  careless  or  distrustful 
when  out  of  commonest  things,  out  of  daily 
tasks,  and  daily  difficulties,  and  daily  joys, 
and  the  simplest  needs  of  your  nature,  and  the 
most  domestic  familiarities  of  life,  God  speaks 
to  you  and  offers  you  His  Son.  Know  His 
voice  so  truly  that  you  cannot  mistake  it  from 
whatever  unexpected  quarter  it  may  speak. 
Watch  for  the  Divine  Light  so  anxiously  that 
you  may  never  say  that  it  is  not  divine  from 
whatever  humblest  quarter  it  may  shine. 

VI.  294. 

All  common  things,  each  day's  events, 
That  with  the  hour  begin  and  end, 

Our  pleasures  and  our  discontents, 
Are  rounds  by  which  we  may  ascend. 

Longfellow. 


246  SEPTEMBER    3. 


If  ye  abide  in  Me,  a?id  My  words  abide  ifiyou, 
ye  shall  ask  what  ye  will,  and  it  shall  be  done  unto 
you. — John  xv.  7. 

CAN  he  in  whom  the  words  of  Christ  abide 
pray  an  unanswered  prayer  ?  .  .  .  Can 
he  in  whom  this  word  of  Christ's  abides — 
"  Seek  ye  first  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  His 
righteousness" — go  on  clamoring  with  miser- 
able mercenary  prayers  for  food  and  drink, 
houses  and  lands,  as  if  they  were  the  first 
things  to  seek  ?  Or  he  in  whom  this  everlast- 
ing word  of  Christ  abides — "  In  this  world  ye 
shall  have  tribulations," — can  you  conceive 
of  him  as  vexing  God  with  querulous  supplica- 
tions to  be  released  from  suffering,  and  not 
delighting  God  with  holy  petitions  that  he  may 
be  brave  and  patient  under  it,  that  he  may  be 
purified  and  made  perfect  by  it  ?  .  .  .  How 
many  times  we  have  complained  that  our 
prayer  brought  no  answer,  when  it  was  a  prayer 
that  we  never  could  have  prayed  unless  we  first 
drove  out  every  word  of  Christ  from  its  abid- 
ing-place within  us!  Is  there  a  Christian 
here  who  can  declare  before  God  that  he  ever 
prayed  to  God  in  perfect  submission  to  Christ's 
will,  in  perfect  conformity  to  Christ's  words, 
and  got  no  answer  ?  Not  here;  not  in  all  the 
world;  not  in  all  the  ages!  VI.  305, 

No  voice  of  prayer  to  Thee  can  rise, 
But  swift  as  light  Thy  love  replies  ; 
Not  always  what  we  ask,  indeed, 
But,  O  Most  Kind  !  what  most  we  need.    .   .   . 
For  bread  may  nourish  less  than  stone 
If  eaten  thankless  or  alone  ; 
And  many  a  pure,  desired  thing- 
Might  prove  a  snare  or  hide  a  sting, 

Harriet  McEwen  Kimball. 


SEPTEMBER   4.  247 

Thy  will  be  done. — Luke  xi.  2, 

\17HAT  is  it  that  you  ask  for  when  you 
' '^  kneel  and  pray  ?  Directly,  no  doubt,  it 
is  some  I^Decial  mercy.  It  is  the  coming  in  of 
your  ship;  it  is  the  recovery  of  your  friend; 
it  is  the  opportunity  of  usefulness  which  you 
desire  for  yourself.  But  do  you  want  any  of 
those  things  if  God  does  not  see  that  it  is  best 
that  you  should  have  them  ?  .  .  .  Is  it  not 
His  will  which  is  your  real,  your  fundamental, 
your  essential  prayer  ?  You  must  keep  that 
essential  prayer  very  clear,  or  the  special 
prayer  becomes  wilful  and  trivial.  You  must 
pray  with  the  great  prayer  in  sight.  You 
must  feel  the  mountains  above  you  while  you 
work  upon  your  little  garden.  Little  by  little 
your  special  wishes  and  the  eternal  will  of 
God  will  grow  in  harmony  with  one  another, 
— all  conflict  will  die  away,  and  the  great  spir- 
itual landscape  from  horizon  to  horizon  be  but 
one.  That  is  the  prayer  of  eternity,  the 
prayer  of  heaven,  to  which  we  may  come — no 

one  can  say  how  near — on  earth: — 

V.  121. 

Which  brings  to  God's  all-perfect  will 
That  trust  of  His  undoubting  child, 

Whereby  all  seeming  good  and  ill 
Are  reconciled. 

Whittier. 


248  SEPTEMBER   5. 

For  if  the  77iinistration  of  condemnation  he 
glory,  much  more  doth  the  ministratio7i  of  right- 
eousness exceed  in  glory. — 2  Cor.  iii.  9. 

THINK  of  the  minister's  necessaryirelation 
to  God.  God  is  the  granary  from  which 
he  must  be  immediately  fed,  the  armory  fromx 
which  his  weapons  must  be  immediately  drawn. 
....  He  must  sanctify  himself  that  the  peo- 
ple may  be  sanctified  through  him.  .  .  .  Then 
think  of  the  minister's  relation  to  mankind. 
Whatever  tells  upon  his  people's  characters 
he  shares  with  them.  Their  temptations  and 
their  victories  are  his.  He  goes  with  them  up 
into  the  heavens  and  down  into  the  depths. 
His  personal  life  is  multiplied  by  theirs.  What 
is  it  to  live  ?  To  crawl  on  in  the  dust,  leaving 
a  trail  which  the  next  shower  hastens  to  wash 
away  ?  Is  it  to  breathe  the  breath  of  heaven 
as  the  tortoise  does,  and  to  bask  in  the  sun- 
shine like  the  lizard  ?  Or  is  it  to  touch  the 
eternal  forces  which  are  behind  everything 
with  one  hand,  and  to  lay  the  other  on  the 
quivering  needles  and  the  beating  hammers  of 
this  common  life  ?  Is  it  to  deal  with  God  and 
deal  with  man  ?  Is  it  to  use  their  powers  to 
the  utmost,  and  to  find  ever  new  power  coming 
into  them  constantly  with  their  use?  If  this  is 
life,  then  there  is  no  man  who  lives  more  than 
the  minister;  and  the  generous  youth  whose 
cry  is,  "  Let  me  live  while  I  live,"  must  some 
day  feel  the  vitality  of  great  service  of  God 
and  man,  and  press  in  through  the  sacred 
doors,  saying,  "  Let  me,  too,  be  a  minister!  " 

VI.  339- 


SEPTEMBER    6. 


249 


The  spirit  of  tna?i  is  the  candle  of  the  Lord. 

Prov.  XX.  27. 

FT^HERE  is  a]  perpetual  revelation  of  God  by 
L  1  human  life.  .  .  .  See  how  at  the  very 
bottom  of  His  existence,  as  you  conceive  of  it, 
lie  these  two  thoughts — purpose  and  righteous- 
ness; how  absolutely  impossible  it  is  to  give 
God  any  personality  except  as  the  fulfilment 
of  the  intelligence  that  plans  in  love,  and  the 
righteousness  that  lives  in  duty.  Then  ask 
yourself  how  any  knowledge  of  these  qualities 
— of  what  they  are,  of  what  kind  of  being  they 
will  make  in  their  perfect  combination — could 
exist  upon  the  earth  if  there  were  not  a  human 
nature  here  in  which  they  could  be  uttered, 
from  which  they  could  shine.  Only  a  person 
can  truly  utter  a  person.  Only  from  a  charac- 
ter can  a  character  be  echoed.  You  might 
write  it  all  over  the  skies  that  God  was  just, 
but  it  would  not  burn  there.  It  would  be,  at 
best,  only  a  bit  of  knowledge;  never  a  Gospel; 
never  something  which  it  would  gladden  the 
hearts  of  men  to  know.  That  comes  only 
when  a  human  life,  capable  of  a  justice  like 
God's,  made  just  by  God,  glows  with  His 
justice  in  the  eyes  of  men,  a  candle  of  the 
Lord. 

II.  6. 


As  the  planets  to  the  sun. 

We  would  moor  our  souls  to  Thee; 
Kindle  us,  All-Heavenly  One, 
•  Torches  of  Thy  truth  to  be! 

Lucy  Larcom. 


250  SEPTEMBER    7. 

Methinks  we  do  as  fretful  children  do, 

Leaning  their  faces  on  the  window-pane 

To  sigh  the  glass  dim  with  their  own  breath's 

stain, 
And  shut  the  sky  and  landscape  from  their  view ; 
And  thus,  alas! — since  God  the  Maker  drew 
A  mystic  separation  'twixt  those  twain, 
The  life  beyond  us  and  our  souls  in  pain — 
We  miss  the  prospect  which  we're  called  unto. 

Be  still  and  strong, 

O  man,  my  brother,  hold  thy  sobbing  breath. 
And  keep  thy  soul's  large  window  pure  from 

wrong, 
That  so,  as  life's  appointment  issueth, 
Thy  vision  may  be  clear  to  watch,  along 
The  sunset,  consummation-lights  of  death. 
Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning. 

PAUL  tells  of  Christians  who  "  through  fear 
of  death  are  all  their  lifetime  subject  to 
bondage."  There  are  some  men  and  women 
who  haunt  their  lives  and  make  them  cheerless, 
for  fear  they  will  not  be  able  to  meet  the  king 
of  terrors  when  he  comes.  Dear  friends,  learn 
from  your  Saviour  that  no  duty  reveals  itself 
till  we  approach  it.  The  duty  of  death,  when 
you  approach  it,  will  light  itself  up,  you  may 
be  sure,  and  seem  very  easy  to  your  soul.  Till 
then  do  not  trouble  yourself  about  it.  To 
live,  and  not  to  die,  is  your  work  now.  When 
your  time  comes  the  Christ  who  conquered 
death  will  prove  Himself  its  Lord,  and  pave 
the  narrow  river  to  a  sea  of  glass  for  you  to 
cross.  The  work  of  life  is  living,  and  not,  as 
we  are  so  often  told,  preparing  to  die,  except 
by  living  well.  VII,  235. 


SEPTEMBER    8.  251 

Whatsoever  ye  do^  do  it  heartily^  as  to  the  Lord. 

Col.  iii.  23. 


AN  act  of  yours  is  not  simply  the  thing  you 
do:  it  is  the  reason  why  you  do  it.  Why 
are  you  selling  your  goods  ?  If  without  false- 
hood you  can  say,  "  Because  it  is  my  duty,  in 
order  that  I  may  maintain  my  family  and  serve 
my  generation  and  honor  God  by  useful- 
ness," then  certainly  the  act  opens  itself  and 
becomes  a  church.  It  is  the  house  of  God.  It 
is  the  gate  of  heaven.  ...  In  every  act  con- 
sciously and  devoutly  done  for  God's  sake, 
God  gives  Himself  to  the  soul  and  feeds  it,  in 
the  act;  not  after  it  and  in  reward  of  it,  but 
in  it. 

Seek  your  life's  nourishment  in  your  life's 
work.  Do  not  think  that  after  you  have 
bought  or  sold  or  studied  or  taught,  you  will 
go  into  your  closet  and  open  your  Bible,  and 
repair  the  damage  and  the  loss  that  your  day's 
life  has  left  you.  Do  those  things  certainly,  but 
also  insist  that  your  buying  or  selling  or  study- 
ing or  teaching  shall  itself  make  you  brave, 
patient,  pure  and  holy!  Do  not  let  your  oc- 
cupation pass  you  by,  and  leave  you  only  the 
basest  and  poorest  of  its  benefits — the  money 
with  which  it  fills  your  purse.  Compel  it  to 
give  up  to  you  the  charity  and  faith  and  char- 
acter and  godliness  which  it  has  as  its  heart, 
which  it  hides  charily,  but  which  it  must  give 
to  you  if  you  insist  upon  it  and  are  able  to 
receive  it. 

IV.  238,  242. 


252  SEPTEMBER   9. 

/  will  lift  mine  eyes  unto  the  hills,  from  whence 
Cometh  my  help. — Ps.  cxxi.  i. 

I  TURN  to  Jesus,  and  in  all  His  human  life 
there  seems  to  me  nothing  more  divine 
than  the  instinctive  and  unerring  way  in  which 
He  always  reached  up  to  the  highest,  and  re- 
fused to  be  satisfied  with  any  lower  help.  In 
the  desert  the  Devil  offered  Him  bread,  good 
wholesome  bread.  Apparently  He  could  have 
had  it  if  He  would;  but  he  replied,  "  Man  shall 
not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by  the  word  of 
God."  .  .  .  On  the  cross  they  held  up  to  Him 
the  sponge  full  of  vinegar;  but  the  thirst  that 
was  in  Him  demanded  a  deeper  satisfaction, 
and  He  gave  His  soul  to  His  Father  and  finished 
His  obedient  work.  So  it  was  everywhere  with 
him.  The  souls  beside  Him  found  their  helps 
and  satisfactions  in  the  superficial  things  of 
earth.  .  .  .  He  could  not  rest  anywhere  till 
He  had  found  God  His  Father,  and  laid  the 
burden  which  was  crushing  Him  into  the  bosom 
of  the  eternal  strength  and  the  exhaustless  love. 
It  is  your  privilege  and  mine,  as  children  of 
God,  to  be  satisfied  with  no  help  but  the  help 
of  the  highest.  When  we  are  content  to  seek 
strength  or  comfort  or  truth  or  salvation  from 
any  hand  short  of  God's,  we  are  disowning 
our  childhood  and  dishonoring  our  Father. 

II.  285. 

Oh!  there  is  never  sorrow  of  heart 
That  shall  lack  a  timely  end, 

If  but  to  God  we  turn,  and  ask 
Of  Him  to  be  our  friend. 

Wordsworth. 


SEPTEMBER    lo.  253 


What  is  the  chaff  to  the  wheat  ?  saith  the  Lord. 

Jer.  xxiii.  24. 

NEVER  be  afraid  to  bring  the  transcendent 
mysteries  of  our  faith,  Christ's  life  and 
death  and  resurrection,  to  the  help  of  the 
humblest  and  commonest  of  human  wants. 
There  is  a  sort  of  preaching  which  keeps  them 
for  the  great  emergencies,  and  soothes  the 
common  sorrows  and  rebukes  the  common 
sins  with  lower  considerations  of  economy. 
Such  preaching  fails.  It  neither  appeals  to 
the  lower  nor  to  the  higher  perceptions  of 
mankind.  It  is  useful,  neither  as  law  nor  gos- 
pel. It  is  like  a  river  that  is  frozen  too  hard 
to  be  navigable  but  not  hard  enough  to  bear. 
Never  fear  to  bring  the  sublimest  motives  to 
the  smallest  duty,  and  the  most  infinite  com- 
fort to  the  smallest  trouble.  They  will  prove 
that  they  belong  there  if  only  the  duty  and 
the  trouble  are  real. 

IX.  27. 


For  He  who  bore  all  sorrow  weighed, 
Nailed  to  His  own,  each  lesser  cross; 

He  knows  the  burden  on  us  laid. 
The  secret  pain,  the  hidden  loss. 


Touched  with  our  woes,  He  lifteth  up 
The  humblest  follower  in  His  train; 

He  maketh  sweet  the  bitter  cup, 
And  death  itself  is  blessed  gain.  ' 

Harriet  McEwen  Kimball. 


254 


SEPTEMBER    ii. 


HOW  many  of  us  have  said,  "I  will  love 
God;  I  ought  to,  and  I  will,"  and  so 
have  wrestled  and  struggled  to  do  what  they 
could  not  do, — what  in  their  hearts  they  knew 
no  real  reason  for  doing, — and  have  miserably 
failed,  and  now  are  satisfying  themselves  with 
loveless  obedience,  or  else  have  left  God  alto- 
gether and  tell  their  hearts  that  they  must 
forego  all  such  beautiful,  hopeless  ambitions. 
Ah,  my  friend,  what  you  need  is  to  get  away 
round  upon  the  other  side  of  the  whole  matter. 
It  is  not  whether  you  love  God  but  whether 
God  loves  you.  If  He  does,  and  if  you  can 
know  that  He  does,  then  give  yourself  up  to- 
tally and  unquestioningly  to  the  assurance  of 
that  love.  Rejoice  in  it  by  day  and  night.  Go 
singing  for  the  joy  of  it  about  your  work  and 
your  play.  And  as  you  go  singing  for  joy 
that  God  loves  you,  behold  the  response  is 
born  before  you  know  it,  and  you  are  loving 
God  as  countless  souls  have  always  loved 
Him,  "because  He  first  loved  us." 

V.  51. 

If  I  Him  but  have, 

If  He  be  but  mine. 
If  my  heart,  hence  to  the  grave, 

Ne'er  forgets  His  love  divine — 
Know  I  naught  of  sadness. 
Feel  I  naught  but  worship,  love,  and  gladness. 

George  Macdonald. 


SEPTEMBER    12.  255 

Jesus  said  unto  htm,  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord 
thy  God  .  .   .  with  all  thy  mind. 

Matt.  xvii.  37. 

EVERYWHERE,  to  think  that  divine  truth 
lies  beyond  or  away  from  the  intelligence 
of  man,  is  at  once  to  make  divine  truth  unreal 
and  unpractical,  and  to  condemn  the  human 
intelligence  to  dealing  not  with  the  highest, 
but  only  with  the  lowest  themes.  .  .  .  Love 
God  with  all  your  mind,  because  your  mind, 
like  all  the  rest  of  you,  belongs  to  Him,  and 
it  is  not  right  that  you  should  give  Him  only  a 
part  to  whom  belongs  the  whole.  When  the 
procession  of  your  powers  goes  up  joyfully 
singing  to  worship  in  the  temple,  do  not  leave 
the  noblest  of  them  all  behind  to  cook  the 
dinner  and  to  tend  the  house.  Give  your  in- 
telligence to  God.  Know  all  that  you  can 
know  about  Him.  In  spite  of  all  disappoint- 
ment and  weakness,  insist  on  seeing  all  that 
you  can  see  now  through  the  glass  darkly,  so 
that  hereafter  you  may  be  ready  when  the  time 
for  seeing  face  to  face  shall  come! 

III.  41,  42. 


No  religion  that  does  not  think  is  strong. 
.  .  .  Mysticism,  disowning  doctrine  and  depre- 
ciating law,  asserts  that  religion  belongs  to 
feeling,  and  that  there  is  no  truth  but  love.  .  .  . 
The  hard  theology  is  bad.  The  soft  theology 
is  worse.  .  .  .  Value  no  feeling  which  is  not 
the  child  of  truth  and  the  father  of  duty. 

IX.  243,  244. 


256  SEPTEMBER 


OH,  how  we  separate  our  knowing  and  our 
obeying  powers,  our  mental  and  our 
moral  natures,  as  if  either  of  them  could  live 
without  the  other!  No,  the  promise  that  we 
shall  know  includes  the  promise  that  we  shall 
obey.     So  it  attains  its  fullest  richness. 

When  we  say  that,  eternity  springs  into  life 
and  lives.  No  longer  a  bare  doctrine,  no 
longer  a  great,  arid  fact,  that  we  shall  live 
forever,  but  a  great,  actual  reality!  Hark, 
through  the  atmosphere  of  that  belief  can  you 
not  hear  the  music  of  the  activity  which  fills 
the  streets  of  the  New  Jerusalem  ?  I  hear  the 
feet  hurrying  over  the  glassy  pavements,  the 
voices  calling  to  each  other  in  the  joy  of  ser- 
vice, the  ringing  of  the  hammers  on  the  anvils 
where  in  the  fire  of  the  love  of  God,  the  per- 
fect obedience  of  His  redeemed  is  forging  His 
perfect  w4ll  into  the  instruments  of  perfect 
deeds.  .  .  .  You  need  not  live  alone,  for  you 
may,  if  you  will,  know  and  obey  God.  You 
and  God,  you  and  God,  one  system  of  power 
knit  together  in  mutual  knowledge,  and  in 
common  standards.  That  is  what  Christ 
claimed  you  for.  .  .  .  Come  by  Him  to  the 
Father,  and  then  live!  O  Christ,  draw  us, 
thy  Father's  children,  to  our  Father  now! 

IV.  295. 


I  need  drawing,  yea,  much  drawing. 
For  unless  Thou  drawest, 
No  one  comes,  no  one  follows, 
Because  every  one  turneth  to  himself. 

Thomas  A  Kempis. 


SEPTEMBER    14.  257 


Now  I  know  in  pa7't  j  but  then  I  shall  know 
even  as  I  am  known. —  i  Cor.  xiii.  12. 

THE  more  one  thinks  and  studies,  the  more 
he  becomes  aware  how  infinite  is  truth. 
.  .  .  Upon  the  subject  which  we  know  best  we 
are  still  out  at  sea.  Every  time  a  fellow-man's 
finger  touches  our  faith,  it  makes  it  rock,  and 
compels  us  to  feel  that,  however  well  anchored 
it  is,  so  that  it  will  not  drift,  it  is  very  far 
from  being  bolted  and  mortised  into  the  solid 
ground.  .  .  .  We  know  this  is  not  good; 
yet  we  very  often  do  not  see  how  it  is  to  be 
escaped.  The  real  escape,  I  think,  lies  here. 
The  Christian  faith  is  not  primarily  a  belief  in 
Christian  truth,  but  a  belief  in  Christ.  All 
truth  which  we  believe,  we  believe  in  and  be- 
cause of  Him.  We  know  that  though  we  have 
truly  taken  Him  for  our  Master,  He  is  very 
far  yet  from  having  told  us  all  that  He  has  to 
tell.  That  knowledge  binds  us  to  Him  not 
merely  by  what  He  has  already  taught  us,  but 
by  the  far  greater  truth  which  He  is  keeping 
for  us,  which  He  will  give  us  in  His  good  time. 

III.  304,  305. 

For  veils  of  hope  before  Thee  drawn. 
For  mists  that  hint  the  immortal  coast 

Hid  in  Thy  farthest,  faintest  dawn, — 
My  God,  for  these  I  thank  Thee  most. 

Joy,  joy!  to  see,  from  every  shore 

Whereon  my  step  makes  pressure  fond. 

Thy  sunrise  reddening  still  before! — 

More  light,  more  love,  more  life  beyond! 

Lucy  Larcom. 


258  SEPTEMBER    15. 


Now  we  see  through  a  glass  darkly^  but  then 
face  to  face. — 2  Cor.  xiii.  12. 

//  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be,  but  we 
know  that  when  He  shall  appear,  we  shall  be  like 
Him. — I  John  iii.  2. 

ALL  these  words  reach  forward.  They  all 
own  a  present  incompleteness.  The  soul 
which  uses  them  is  discontented,  and  lives 
upon  its  hope.  And  when  their  great  fulfil- 
ment comes,  he  who  has  entered  into  the  joy 
they  promise  will  look  back  as  from  a  moun- 
tain top,  and  see  all  experience  till  then  only 
as  the  climbing,  shining  stairway,  so  built  that 
along  it  this  complete  destiny,  this  entire  life, 
might  be  attained.  XII.  21. 

Enough  that  blessings  undeserved 
Have  marked  my  erring  track; 

That  wheresoe'er  my  feet  have  swerved 
His  chastenings  turned  me  back, — 

That  more  and  more  a  Providence 

Of  love  is  understood. 
Making  the  springs  of  time  and  sense 

Sweet  with  eternal  good, — 

That  care  and  trial  seem  at  last. 

Through  memory's  sunset  air, 
Like  mountain  ranges  overpast 

In  purple  distance  fair, — 

That  all  the  jarring  notes  of  life 

Seem  blending  in  a  psalm. 
And  all  the  angles  of  its  strife 

Slow  rounding  into  calm.  Whittier. 


SEPTEMBER    i6.  259 

The  Beautiful  Gate  of  the  temple. — Acts  iii.  10. 

EVERY  human  life  starts  in  the  beautiful 
mystery  of  childhood.  Through  that 
Beautiful  Gate  every  man  comes  into  the  tem- 
ple. .  .  .  And  that  sets  us  to  asking  whether 
to  the  beautiful  temple  of  a  mature  religious 
life  there  is  also  a  beautiful  gate.  .  .  .  Here 
are  children  all  among  us,  and  yet  we  often 
talk  to  one  another  as  if  nobody  under  twenty 
had  anything  to  do  with  the  great  things  which 
are  of  such  unspeakable  importance  after  we 
have  come  of  age.  .  .  .  The  current  idea  of 
the  churches,  which  has  only  just  begun  to  be 
dislodged,  that  adult  conversion  is  the  type 
and  intended  rule  of  Christianity,  comes  largely 
from  the  fact  that  the  first  preachers  had  of 
necessity  to  be  occupied  with  men  who  had 
known  nothing  of  Christianity  in  their  youth. 
Peter  and  Paul  had  to  go  to  grown-up  men, 
and  ask  them  to  begin  the  Christian  life.  But 
surely  that  was  not  to  be  the  perpetual  picture 
of  Christian  culture.  Christ  was  too  human  for 
that.  .  .  .  Christ  had  been  too  evidently  a 
child;  the  Incarnation  had  too  evidently  taken 
all  of  life  into  its  benediction  for  the  children 
ever  to  be  wholly  counted  out. 

IV.  128,  T29,  130. 

The  innocence  that  is  so  wise, 
The  trust  that  dreams  of  no  disguise, 
The  simple  faith  in  mysteries, — 
These  still  shall  in  the  world  survive 
So  long  as  God  doth  children  give. 
To  keep  the  child  in  us  alive. 

Samuel  Longfellow. 


26o  SEPTEMBER    17. 


WE  hear  much  in  these  days  of  the  preco- 
city of  childhood.  .  .  .  Josephus  tells 
us  that  once  in  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  this 
golden  gate  which  we  have  made  the  image  of 
childhood,  "  was  seen  to  be  opened  of  its  own 
accord  about  the  sixth  hour  of  the  night." 
Some  thought  it  was  a  good  omen,  "  as  if  God 
did  open  to  them  the  gate  of  happiness." 
Others  thought  it  was  very  bad,  "as  if  the  gate 
were  open  to  the  advantage  of  their  enemies." 
So  in  this  critical  time  of  ours,  not  the  least 
critical  sign  is  this:  that  the  golden  gate  stands 
open  wide,  that  childhood  is  exposed  and  sensi- 
tive to  new  impressions  and  ideas.  Is  it  for 
good  or  evil  ?  .  .  .  The  wider  open  the  gate 
the  better,  if  only  the  truth  can  be  poured  in. 
The  more  receptive  the  children's  life  the 
better,  if  only  they  who  train  the  children  can 
thoroughly  believe  that  there  is  a  manly  and 
beautiful  religion  of  which  the  child  is  capa- 
ble, and  work  with  God  to  bring  their  children 
to  it.  When  that  conviction  takes  possession 
of  the  Church,  then  the  Church  shall  indeed 
have  her  children  in  her  arms.  Then  Isaiah's 
vision  of  the  complete  New  Jerusalem  shall  be 
fulfilled:  "Thou  shalt  call  thy  walls  salva- 
tion, and  thy  gates  praise." 

IV.  150. 

"  Beautiful  gates  are  for  beautiful  things, — 
Beautiful  thought  on  beautiful  wings, 
Beautiful  love  that  heavenward  springs." 


SEPTEMBER    i8.  261 


IN  almost  every  Christian's  experience  come 
times  of  despondency  and  gloom,  when 
there  seems  to  be  a  depletion  of  the  spiritual 
life,  when  the  fountams  that  used  to  burst  and 
sing  with  water  are  grown  dry,  when  love  is 
loveless,  and  hope  hopeless,  and  enthusiasm  so 
utterly  dead  and  buried  that  it  is  hard  to  be- 
lieve that  it  ever  lived.  At  such  times  there  is 
nothing  for  us  to  do  but  hold  with  eager  hands 
to  the  bare,  rocky  truths  of  our  religion,  as 
a  shipwrecked  man  hangs  to  a  strong,  rugged 
cliff  when  the  great  retiring  wave  and  all  the 
little  eddies  all  together  are  trying  to  sweep 
him  back  into  the  deep.  .  .  .  Then,  when  the 
tide  turns,  and  we  can  hold  ourselves  lightly 
where  we  once  had  to  hang  heavily,  when  faith 
grows  easy,  and  God  and  Christ  and  responsi- 
bility and  eternity  are  once  more  the  glory  and 
delight  of  happy  days  and  peaceful  nights, 
then  certainly  there  is  something  new  in  them, 
— a  new  color,  a  new  warmth.  The  soul  has 
caught  a  new  idea  of  God's  love  when  it  has 
not  only  been  fed  but  rescued  by  Him. 

IV.  120. 


I  know  not  what  the  future  hath 

Of  marvel  or  surprise. 
Assured  alone  that  life  and  death 

His  mercy  underlies. 

I  know  not  where  His  islands  lift 
Their  fronded  palms  in  air; 

I  only  know  I  cannot  drift 
Beyond  His  love  and  care. 

Whittier. 


262  SEPTEMBER    19. 

And  07ie  of  them,  when  he  saw  that  he  was 
healed^  turned  back,  and  fell  down  on  his  face  at 
His  feet,  giving  Him  thanks. 

Luke  xvii.  15,  16. 


THERE  is  such  a  difference  between  coming 
out  of  sorrow  thankful  for  relief,  and 
coming  out  of  sorrow  full  of  sympathy  with 
and  trust  in  Him  who  has  released  us.  Nine 
lepers  hurry  off  to  show  themselves  with  their 
white  skins  to  the  priest.  One  leper  only 
waits  to  cast  himself  at  the  feet  of  Jesus  and 
worship  Him.  Tell  me,  will  not  those  nine 
be  different  from  that  one  if  ever  a  new  dis- 
ease should  fall  upon  them  all  ? 

Let  that  one  leper  be  the  type  of  the  soul 
to  whom  the  whole  blessedness  of  a  blessing 
from  Christ  has  come.  Not  only  the  health 
but  the  Healer  he  delights  in.  Not  only  the 
salvation  but  the  Saviour  is  his  glory  and  his 
joy.  Such  souls  there  are;  souls  to  which  all 
the  deliverances  and  the  educations  that  have 
filled  their  past  lives  are  precious,  not  merely 
for  the  safety  and  the  instruction  which  they 
have  brought,  but  far  more  for  the  personal 
knowledge  of  the  Deliverer  and  the  Teacher 
which  has  been  won  in  them,  and  in  whose 
strength  the  soul  looks  on  and  faces  all  that 
the  future  has  to  bring  without  a  fear. 

II-  333. 


Faith  sees  the  future  in  the  past: 
Its  Saviour  is  its  First  and  Last. 


SEPTEMBER    20.  263 

Xl/E  cannot  believe  in  our  Christ  for  our- 
'  '  selves,  unless  we  believe  in  Him  for  all 
the  world.  The  more  deeply  we  believe  in 
Him  for  ourselves,  the  more  certain  we  shall 
be  that  he  is  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  A  deeper 
personal  faith,  a  more  complete  discipleship, 
that  is  what  you  want.  Have  that,  and  the 
apostleship  must  come.  If  there  is  any  part  of 
your  life  not  wholly  consecrated  to  Him,  if 
there  is  any  of  His  love  which  you  have  not 
appropriated,  if  there  is  any  undone  duty 
which,  as  you  do  it,  will  open  a  new  door  into 
His  heart,  if  there  is  any  word  by  speaking 
which  you  may  the  more  utterly  commit  your- 
self to  Him;  just  as  surely  as  in  any  of  these 
ways  you  deepen  your  own  spiritual  life  and 
make  Jesus  more  your  Saviour,  just  so  surely 
you  will  believe  in  Foreign  Missions,  and  long 
to  tell  all  men  that  He  is  their  Saviour  too. 

IV.  172. 


Oh,  if  our  brother's  blood  cry  out  at  us, 

How  shall  we  meet  Thee  who  hast  loved  us 
all,— 
Thee  whom  we  never  loved,  not  loving  him  ? 
The  unloving  cannot  chant  with  seraphim, 
Bear  harp  of  gold  or  palm  victorious. 
Or  face  the  vision  beatifical. 

Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


264  SEPTEMBER    21. 


The7t  came  the  disciples  to  Jesus   apart^   and 
said,  Why  could  not  we  cast  him  out  2 

Matt.  xvii.  9. 

IN  our  story  Christ,  when  He  came  and  found 
the  Disciples  helpless  before  their  task,  put 
forth  His  hand  and  healed  the  sick  boy  with 
no  help  of  theirs.  But  that  was  an  excep- 
tional event.  .  .  .  The  great  method  of  His 
operation  when  it  was  thoroughly  established 
was  to  work  through  obedient  men.  It  was 
Matthew's  obedience  in  the  hand  of  Christ's 
commandment  that  saved  Matthew.  ...  If 
any  of  you  are  struggling  with  your  sins,  I 
beg  you  to  learn  the  truth  and  see  it  wholly. 
You  cannot  cast  them  out,  but  if  you  will  give 
yourself  to  Him,  He  can  cast  them  out  with 
you.  Hate  your  sins  for  His  sake;  let  His 
love  fill  you  with  love,  and  then  the  conquer- 
ing of  your  sins  by  His  help  shall  be  in  its 
course  one  long  enthusiasm,  and  at  the  end  a 
glorious  success.  III.  198,  199. 

I  could  not  do  without  Thee, 

0  Saviour  of  the  lost! 

Whose  precious  blood  redeemed  me, 

At  such  tremendous  cost. 
I  could  not  do  without  Thee; 

1  cannot  stand  alone; 

I  have  no  strength  or  goodness. 

No  wisdom  of  my  own. 
But  Thou,  beloved  Saviour, 

Art  all  in  all  to  me; 
And  weakness  will  be  power. 

If  leaning  hard  on  Thee. 

Frances  R.  Havergal. 


SEPTEMBER    22.  265 


The  good  will  of  Him  that  dwelt  in  the  bush. 

Deut,  xxxiii.  16. 

THE  identity  of  God's  eternal  being  stretches 
under,  and  gives  consistence  to,  our  frag- 
mentary lives.  God's  eternity  makes  our  time 
coherent.  And  so  it  was  God  in  the  old  bush 
that  made  it  still  visible  to  Moses  across  the 
eventful  interval.  He  saw  that  bush  when  all 
the  other  bushes  of  Egypt  had  faded  out  of 
sight,  because  that  bush  was  on  fire  with  God. 
And  as  Christianity  is  the  most  vivid  of  all  re- 
ligions, with  its  personally  manifested  God, 
there  is  a  more  perfect  unity  in  a  Christian  life 
than  in  any  other.  It  keeps  all  its  parts,  and 
from  its  consummations  looks  back  with  grati- 
tude and  love  to  its  beginnings.  The  crown 
that  it  casts  before  the  throne  at  last  is  the 
same  that  it  felt  trembling  on  its  brow  in  the 
first  ecstatic  sense  of  Christ's  forgiveness, 
and  that  has  been  steadily  glowing  into  greater 
clearness  as  perfecting  love  has  more  and  more 
completely  cast  out  fear.  The  feet  that  go 
up  to  God  into  the  mountain,  at  the  end,  are 
the  same  that  first  put  off  their  shoes  beside  the 
burning  bush.  This  is  why  the  Christian, 
more  than  other  men,  not  merely  dares  but 
loves  to  look  back  and  remember. 

II.  40. 

Help  me  to  look  behind,  before, 
To  make  my  past  and  future  form 

A  bow  of  promise,  meeting  o'er 
The  darkness  of  my  day  of  storm. 

Phebe  Gary, 


266  SEPTEMBER    23. 


THE  good  will  of  Him  that  dwelt  in  the 
bush."  ...  In  some  church-pew,  in 
some  closet's  privacy,  in  some  stillness  or 
some  crowd,  years  ago  the  fire  came;  the  com- 
mon life  about  you  burned  with  the  sudden 
presence  of  Divinity;  God  called  you,  and  you 
gave  yourself  to  God.  I  bid  you  look  back 
and  see  the  mercy  that  has  led  you  ever  since, 
and  strengthen  your  hope  and  courage  and 
charity  and  faith  as  you  remember  the  long, 
long  good-will  of  Him  that  dwelt  in  the  bush. 
And  some  of  you  are  standing  just  by  the  bush- 
side  still,  the  shoes  off  your  feet,  the  voice  of 
God  in  your  ears,  lifted  up  with  the  desire  for 
the  new  life  of  Christ.  You  are  determined 
to  be  His,  for  He  has  called  you.  Well,  till 
the  end,  life  here  and  hereafter  will  be  only 
the  unfolding  of  this  personal  love  which  seems 
to  you  so  dear  and  so  mysterious  now.  .  .  . 
The  mercy  which  takes  you  into  its  bosom  at 
last  in  heaven,  will  be  still  the  old  familiar 
good-will  of  Him  that  dwelt  in  the  bush. 

II.  58. 


My  soul  is  melted  by  that  love. 

So  tender  and  so  true; 
I  can  but  cry:   My  God  and  Lord, 

What  wilt  Thou  have  me  do  ? 

My  blessings  all  come  back  to  me. 

And  round  about  me  stand; 
Help  me  to  climb  their  dizzy  stairs. 

Until  I  touch  Thy  hand! 

Alice  Gary. 


SEPTEMBER    24.  267 

There  is  some  soul  of  goodness  in  things  evil, 
Would  men  observingly  distil  it  out. 

Shakespeare. 

THE  sins  Christ  has  forgiven  are  dead,  but 
they  are  not  gone.  If  none  of  the  dead 
go  from  us,  if  when  death  comes  a  new  and 
finer  life  begins,  and  he  whom  we  call  dead  is 
with  us  in  sweetest,  subtlest  portion  of  his 
life,  with  everything  of  harshness,  every  dis- 
agreement, every  power  of  harm  taken  out, 
why  may  it  not  be  so  with  our  dead  sins  ?  It 
is  so,  surely!  There  is  a  soul  in  them  which 
lives  on  still  while  their  body  of  wickedness 
has  perished — a  soul  of  patience,  of  watchful- 
ness, of  gratitude,  and  of  never-dying  love. 
O  my  dear  friends,  we  have  not  done  with  a 
sin  of  ours,  we  have  not  finished  its  history, 
until,  long,  long  after  it  has  died  in  the  kind 
forgiveness  of  the  Saviour,  we  have  traced  the 
eternal  career  of  the  spirit  which  its  death 
has  liberated  into  life,  giving  steadfastness  to 
duty,  and  charity  to  friendship,  and  unutter- 
able tenderness  to  the  love  of  the  Saviour  till 
eternity  shall  end. 

That  is  what  our  sins  shall  be  to  us  forever. 
They  die  as  sins  in  forgiveness  that  they  may 
live  forever  as  the  impulses  of  holiness  and 
the  exhaustless  fountains  of  love. 

VII.  128. 


From  rank  decay  the  fairest  flowers  grow; 
From  buried  springs  the  sweetest  waters  flow, 

Julia  Wood. 


268  SEPTEMBER    25. 

JUST  as  a  delightful  study,  into  which  some 
dear  friend  first  initiated  you,  has  always 
over  and  above  its  own  delightfulness  a  beauty 
that  comes  from  your  love  to  him;  so  the  soul 
that  Jesus  has  made  holy  lives  always  in  the 
beauty  of  holiness,  made  more  exquisite  and 
dear  by  the  loveliness  of  Christ.  Of  every 
earthly  grace  as  well  as  of  the  heavenly  glory 
it  is  true  that  "  the  Lamb  is  the  light  thereof." 
Every  new  attainment  which  the  Christian 
makes  is  but  an  entrance  into  another  man- 
sion which  his  Saviour  has  made  ready  for 
him.  He  grows  brave,  but  Christ  was  brave 
before  him.  He  enters  into  self-sacrifice,  but 
Christ  leads  him  with  His  cross.  He  finds  the 
home  of  his  soul  at  last  in  perfect  union  with 
God;  but  the  Godhood  is  familiar  and  doubly 
dear  to  him  because  of  the  Christhood  through 
which  he  enters  it.  All  virtue,  holiness,  and 
truth,  throughout  the  universe,  loses  the  chill 
of  abstractness  and  glows  with  the  warmth  of 

personal  love. 

VI.  184. 

Love  greatens  and  glorifies 
Till  God's  a  glow  to  the  loving  eyes 
In  what  was  mere  earth  before. 

Browning. 

Do  not  I  Jill  heaven  and  earth  ?  saith  the  Lord. 

Jer.  xxiii.  28. 


SEPTEMBER    26.  269 


Fro7n  henceforth  let  710  man  trouble  me,  for  I 
bear  in  my  body  the  marks  of  the  Lord  Jesus. 

Gal.  vi.  17. 


IN  its  clumsy,  halting  way  the  outer  is  the 
record  of  the  inner  life.  The  body  is  the 
story  of  the  soul.  We  bear  in  our  flesh  the 
marks  of  our  masters.  .  .  .  "Who  is  your 
master?"  is  the  question  that  includes  all 
questions.  If  a  man  tries  to  push  that  ques- 
tion aside,  he  declares  that  he  is  his  own  mas- 
ter. And  then  he  bears  in  his  body  the  marks 
of  himself;  the  faded  colors  and  the  scars  mean 
only  wilfulness  and  selfishness.  But  now  sup- 
pose that  life  has  meant  for  that  man,  from 
the  beginning,  the  claiming  of  his  soul  by  a 
higher  soul;  .  .  .  that  the  life  is  Christ's  life, 
uttering  His  wishes,  seeking  His  purposes, 
filled  and  inspired  by  His  love,  reckoning  its 
vitality  by  the  degree  of  conscious  and  realized 
sympathy  with  Him, — and  then  it  will  be  true 
that  every  outward  sign  in  which  those  inward 
experiences  are  recorded  will  become  a  mark 
of  the  Lord  Jesus,  a  sign  of  the  occupation  of 
the  nature  by  His  nature  which  is  what  it  has 
meant  for  this  man  to  live. 

II-  357,  358,  359- 


Yea,  let  the  fragrant  scars  abide. 

Love-tokens  in  Thy  stead, 
Faint  shadows  of  the  spear-pierced  side 

And  thorn-encompassed  head. 

John  Henry  Newman. 


270  SEPTEMBER    27. 

No  man  can  serve  two  masters. — Matt.  vi.  24. 

SHALL  you  be  God's  or  the  world's?  Be 
both!  Not  in  any  low  miserable  compro- 
mise. Not  by  the  effort  to  serve  God  and 
mammon.  But  by  a  brave  and  filial  question- 
ing of  God  that  He  may  tell  you  just  how  He 
wants  a  child  of  His  to  live  in  this  peculiar 
time  and  under  these  peculiar  circumstances  of 
yours.  There  is  a  type  of  universal  human  life 
in  harmony  with  the  best  life  of  all  the  ages,  in 
tune  with  the  sublimest  and  finest  spiritual 
music  of  the  universe,  in  harmony  also  with 
the  profoundest  dictates  of  your  own  personal 
conscience,  which  you  can  live  in  your  parlor 
and  your  shop;  and  that  life  you  can  reach  if 
you  are  consecrated  to  God  in  your  own  place 
and  time.  If  you  live  that  life,  the  world  of 
the  present  owns  you  and  claims  you  and  re- 
joices in  you.  The  most  distant  life  of  man 
looks  in  on  you  and  recognizes  you  as  a  part 
of  itself,  and  says,  "Well  done!"  Up  from 
your  own  conscience  speaks  your  self-approval. 
And  God  your  Father  bends  His  love  around 
you,  and  out  of  His  blessing  feeds  you  with 
His  strength.  VI.  240. 

Take  my  life,  and  let  it  be 
Consecrated,  Lord,  to  Thee. 

Take  my  will,  and  make  it  Thine; 
It  shall  be  no  longer  mine. 

Take  myself,  and  I  will  be 
Ever,  only,  all  for  Thee. 

Frances  R.  Havergal. 


SEPTEMBER    28.  271 


TO  be  religious,  to  be  a  Christian,  means 
something  accurate  and  specific.  It  is 
not  to  be  a  Httle  stronger  than  the  strongest,  a 
little  wiser  than  the  wisest,  a  little  truer  than 
the  truest.  It  is  something  more.  It  is  some- 
thing different  from  all.  It  is  to  have  taken 
up  a  new  quality  of  being,  which  God  only 
gives  through  Jesus  Christ,  ...  to  have  be- 
come the  subject  of  forces  deeper,  dealing  with 
profounder  regions  of  the  nature,  than  were 
ever  stirred  before.   .   .   . 

Let  a  plant  try  to  be  a  bird  forever  and  it 
will  forever  fail.  It  may  grow  to  be  a  very 
superior  plant,  unfold  a  lordly  beauty  to  the 
wondering  sun,  but  between  it  and  the  song 
and  the  flight  and  the  nest  lies  forever  the  gulf 
that  separates  flower-life  from  bird-life  and 
never  can  be  crossed.  Let  a  man  try  to  be  a 
Christian  forever.  The  struggle  may  make 
him,  I  believe  it  will  make  him,  a  better  man; 
but  between  him  and  the  strength  and  the 
peace  and  the  love  yawns  forever  the  gulf  that 
separates  man-life  from  God-life,  and  which  no 
man  ever  yet  crossed  save  as  he  stretched  out 
both  his  helpless  hands  to  God  and  felt  a  hand 
too  powerful  not  to  trust  clasp  them  and  lift 
him,  whither  he  knew  not,  till  lo!  the  gulf  was 
crossed,  and  he  had  entered  on  the  new  life 
that  they  live  who  live  in  God. 

VII.  160. 

In  Thy  prese7ice  is  fulness  of  joy. — Ps.  xvi.  11. 


272  SEPTEMBER    29. 

NOTICE  the  mysterious  personalness  with 
which  sin  presents  itself  as  a  tempter  to 
the  hearts  of  men, — what  we  usually  hear 
stated  as  the  doctrine  of  "besetting  sins." 
.  .  .  Why  is  it  that  he  who  is  most  liable  to 
pride,  has  such  continual  incitements  to  over- 
weening vanity  ?  Why  is  it  that  the  poor  ine- 
briate, trying  to  give  up  his  drink,  finds  the 
whole  world  full  of  beckoning  fingers  and 
tempting  voices  that  keep  calling  back  again 
his  dying  passions  into  life  ?  To  the  light  and 
over-frivolous  character  all  nature  shapes  itself 
into  a  chorus  and  sings  siren  songs  to  scare 
incipient  thoughtfulness  away.  .  .  .  Does  it 
not  seem  that  we  are  living  in  the  midst  of 
mysterious  forces  leagued  against  our  souls, — 
that  our  enemy  is  mysterious,  is  superhuman  ? 
Mysterious  and  superhuman,  then,  must  be  our 
safety  and  defence.  .  .  .  "We  wrestle  not 
against  flesh  and  blood,  but  against  .  .  . 
powers,  against  the  rulers  of  the  darkness  of 
this  world." 

VI.  g,  10,  27. 

Michael,  the  leader  of  the  hosts  of  God, 
Who  warred  with  Satan  for  the  body  of  him 
Whom,  living,  God  had  loved!     If  cherubim 
With  cherubim  contended  for  one  clod 
Of  human  dust,  for  forty  years  that  trod 
The  gloomy  desert  of  man's  chastisement, 
Are  there  not  ministering  angels  sent 
To  battle  with  the  devils  that  roam  abroad. 
Clutching  at  living  souls  ?     The  living,  still. 
The  living,  they  shall  praise  Thee! 

Dinah  Muloch  Craik. 


SEPTEMBER   30.  273 


When  Jacob  slept  in  Bethel,  and  there  dreamed 

Of  angels  ever  climbing  and  descending 
A  ladder,  whose  last  height  of  splendor  seemed 
With  glory  of  the  Ineffable  Presence  blend- 
ing,  ... 
Foretold  they  His  descent,  the  Son  of  God, 
Who  humbly  clothed   Himself  in  vestments 
mortal. 
And  so,  encumbered  with  our  weakness,  trod 
With  us  the  stairway  to  His  Father's  portal — 
To  life  whose  inner  secret  none  can  win 
Save  by  surmounting  earthliness  and  sin  ? 

Lucy  Larcom. 


BE  sure  that  you  mount  up  to  Christ  by 
gaining  His  view  of  yourself,  and  that 
you  do  not  drag  Him  down  to  yourself  by 
your  selfishness,  and  then  you  may  freely  claim 
Him  in  your  commonest  life,  and  bid  Him  do, 
and  honor  Him  for  doing,  the  work  which  He 
craves  and  delights  in  when  He  says:  "  I  am 
among  you  as  He  that  serveth."  ...  I  will 
be  studiously  on  my  guard  not  to  mistake  the 
cravings  of  my  nature  for  the  voice  of  the 
coming  Christ,  but  I  will  not  silence  those 
cravings  of  my  nature  when  they  welcome  the 
coming  Christ, — I  will  bid  them  speak,  I  will 
listen  for  God's  answer  to  them,  and  when 
Christ  does  come  it  shall  make  the  witness  of 
His  coming  perfectly  conclusive  and  complete 
that  it  is  not  merely  in  the  clouds  of  heaven, 
but  through  the  worn  and  torn  avenues  of  my 
conscious  human  necessities,  that  He  comes. 

VI.  293. 


274  OCTOBER    i, 


If  I  lay  waste  and  wither  up  with  doubt 

The  blessed  fields  of  heaven  where  once  my 

faith 
Possessed  itself  serenely  safe  from  death; 
If  I  deny  the  things  past  finding  out; 
Or  if  I  orphan  my  own  soul  of  One 
That  seemed  a  Father,  and  make  void  the  place 
Within  me  where  He  dwelt  in  power  and  grace, 
What  do  I  gain  by  that  I  have  undone  ? 

W.   D.   HOWELLS, 

THERE  is  a  great  deal  of  danger  of  our 
forgetting  that  to  believe  much,  and  not 
to  believe  little,  is  the  privilege  and  glory  of 
a  full-grown  man.  There  will  come  times — 
and  upon  such  a  time  our  lot  has  fallen — when 
men  are  led  to  sing  the  praise  and  glorify  the 
influence  of  doubt.  Assuredly  it  has  its  bless- 
ings, but  while  we  magnify  them  we  ought 
never  to  forget  that  they  are  always  of  the 
nature  of  compensation.  .  .  .  There  do  come 
times  when  you  must  cut  a  tree  down  to  its 
very  roots  in  order  that  it  may  grow  up  the 
richer  by-and-by;  but  a  whole  field  of  stumps 
is  not  the  ideal  landscape.  The  forest,  with 
its  wealth  of  glorious  foliage,  is  the  true  cor- 
onation of  the  earth.  .  .  .  Seek  faith — as  full 
and  rich  a  faith  as  you  can  find.  Try  to  know 
all  you  can  about  God  and  your  own  soul. 
Count  every  new  conviction  which  is  really 
won  a  treasure  and  enrichment  of  your  life. 

VII.  319. 


OCTOBER   2.  275 


Help  Thou  ?nine  unbelief. — Matt.  ix.  24. 

YOU  say:  "  Why  is  it  so  easy  for  otliers  to 
believe,  so  hard  for  me?"  There  is  a 
willing  and  an  unwilling  unbelief.  Man  must 
not  complain  that  the  sun  does  not  shine  on 
him,  because  he  shuts  his  eyes.  If  it  is  un- 
willing unbelief;  if  you  really  want  the  truth; 
if  you  are  not  afraid  to  submit  to  it  as  soon 
as  you  shall  see  it;  .  .  .  then  you  are  not 
to  be  pitied.  To  climb  the  mountain  on  its 
hardest  side,  where  its  granite  ribs  press  out 
most  ruggedly,  where  you  must  skirt  round 
chasms  and  clamber  down  and  up  ravines, — 
all  this  has  its  compensations.  You  know  the 
mountain  better  when  you  reach  its  top.  It 
is  a  realler,  a  nobler,  and  so  a  dearer  thing. 
...  If  you  can  only  keep  on  bravely,  perse- 
veringly,  seeking  the  truth,  saying,  "I  must 
have  it  or  die;  "  saying  that  till  you  do  die; 
dying  at  last,  if  needs  be,  in  the  search;  then 
I  declare  not  only  that  somewhere — here  or  in 
a  better  world — the  truth  shall  come  to  you, 
but  that,  when  it  comes,  the  peace  and  the 
serenity  of  it  shall  be  made  vital  with  the  en- 
ergy of  your  long  search.  .  .  .  For  perfect 
truthfulness  must  find  the  truth  at  last,  or 
where  is  God  ? 

IV.  122. 

If  thou  seek  for  truth,  and  do  it^ 
Not  in  vain  shalt  thou  pursue  it. 


If  thou  seek  for  truth,  and  live  it^ 
He  who  is  the  Truth  will  give  it. 


L.  M. 


276  OCTOBER 


That  ye  may  be  filled  with  all  the  fulness  of 
God. — Ephes.  iii.  19. 

THE  Incarnation,  the  beginning  of  the 
earthly  life  of  Christ,  was  the  fulfilment, 
the  filling  full,  of  a  human  nature  by  Divinity. 
It  made  the  man  in  whom  the  miracle  occurred 
absolutely  perfect  man.  It  did  not  make  Him 
something  else  than  man.  .  .  .  Whenever  He 
says  to  men  "Follow  Me,"  He  is  declaring 
that  He  is  man  as  they  are  men,  that  the  pe- 
culiar Divinity  which  filled  Him,  while  it  car- 
ried humanity  to  its  complete  development, 
had  not  changed  that  humanity  into  something 
which  was  no  longer  human.  Can  we  picture 
that  to  ourselves  ?  Is  it  not  just  as  when  the 
sunlight  fills  a  jewel  ?  The  jewel  throbs  and 
glows  with  radiance.  All  its  mysterious  nature 
palpitates  and  burns  with  clearness.  It  opens 
depths  of  color  which  we  did  not  see  before. 
But  still  it  is  the  jewel's  self  that  we  are  see- 
ing. The  sunlight  has  made  us  see  what  it 
is,  not  turned  it  into  something  different  from 
what  it  was.  .  .  .  One  thing  evidently  ap- 
pears; which  is  that  the  developing  power, 
which  brings  the  being  into  which  it  enters  to 
its  best,  has  essential  and  natural  relations  to 
the  being  which  it  develops.  The  jewel  be- 
longs to  the  light.  And  this  must  always  be 
the  truth  which  must  underlie  all  understand- 
ing of  the  Incarnation.  Man  belongs  to  God. 
The  human  nature  belongs  to  the  Divine. 

II.  255,  256,  257. 

/  am  come  that  they  might  have  life,  and  that 
they  might  have  it  more  abundantly. — John  x.  10. 


OCTOBER   4.  277 


That  ye ^  being  rooted  and  grounded  in  love,  may 
be  able  .  .  .  to  kfiow  the  love  of  Christ,  which 
passeth  knowledge. — Ephes.  iii.  17,  19. 


HEAVEN  is  not  only  real  because  His  hu- 
manity is  there,  not  merely  glorious 
because  His  greatness  is  there.  It  is  dear 
because  His  love  is  there — the  love  which 
filled  His  earthly  life,  the  love  of  the  miracle 
and  of  the  wayside  teaching  and  of  the  cross. 
The  nearness  and  the  glory  might  be  there  and 
yet  Heaven  not  lay  hold  of  our  hearts.  We 
might  be  well  content  to  stand  far  off  and 
gaze.  We  might  not  want  to  go  there.  We 
might  not  listen  for  messages,  nor  send  our 
feeble  voices  forth  in  prayer.  But  now  our 
Christ  is  there,  our  Saviour,  what  wonder  if 
the  earth  a  thousand  times  seems  dull  and 
wearisome,  and  always  gets  its  best  brightness 
from  that  other  world  in  which  He  is,  of  which 
this  is  the  vestibule!  .  .  .  What  wonder  if  the 
hope  that  He  will  some  day  take  us  to  Himself 
abides  calm  and  constant  behind  all  the  tran- 
sitory hopes  of  life,  which  are  lighted  and  go 
out  again  and  again,  while  that  hope  remains 
always  as  the  deep  sky  remains  behind  the 
coming  and  the  going  of  the  stars! 

VII.  301. 


Some  are  resigned  to  go, — might  we  such  grace 
attain 

That   we   should   need  our  resignation  to  re- 
main. 

Richard  G.  Trench. 


278  OCTOBER   5. 


Lo^  I  come. — Heb.  x.  7. 

THE  great  Christian  doctrine  of  the  Atone- 
ment tells  us  that  when  man  fell  from 
holiness  to  sin,  there  appeared  in  the  whole 
universe  only  one  nature  which  had  in  itself  a 
fitness  to  undertake  the  work  of  reconciliation 
and  restoral.  .  .  .  Then  comes  the  question, 
When  did  that  fitness  of  the  Christ  begin  ? 
.  .  .  What  if  He  had  borae  forever  the  human 
element  in  His  Divinity,  anointed  Christ  from 
all  eternity  ?  What  if  there  had  been  forever 
a  Saviourhood  in  the  Deity,  an  everlasting 
readiness  which  made  it  always  certain  that,  if 
ever  such  a  catastrophe  as  Eden  came,  such  a 
remedy  as  Calvary  must  follow  ?  Does  not  this 
deepen  all  our  thought  of  salvation  ?  Does  it 
not  teach  us  what  is  meant  by  "  the  Lamb  slain 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world  "  ? 

And  see  how  such  a  truth  tallies  with  all 
God's  ways.  This  natural  body  of  ours  has 
in  itself  the  fitness  for  two  sets  of  processes, 
— the  processes  of  growth  and  the  processes 
of  repair.  You  keep  your  arm  unbroken, 
and  nature  feeds  it  with  continual  health; 
you  break  that  same  arm  and  the  same  nature 
beautifully  testifies  her  completeness,  which 
includes  the  power  of  the  Healer  as  well  as 
the  Supplier.  So  it  is  to  me  a  noble  thought, 
that  in  an  everlasting  Christhood  in  the  Deity 
we  have  from  all  eternity  a  provision  for  the 
exigency  which  came  at  last, — a  provision,  not 
temporary  and  spasmodic,  but  existing  forever, 
and  only  called  out  into  operation  by  the 
occurrence  of  the  need. 

VI.  316,  317. 


OCTOBER   6.  279 


/  am  not  come  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfil. 

Matt.  v.  17 


IT  is  redemption  and  fulfilment  that  Christ 
comes  to  bring  to  man.  There  is  a  true 
humanity  which  is  to  be  restored,  and  all  whose 
unattained  possibilities  are  to  be  filled  out. 
.  .  .  Man  is  a  child  of  God,  for  whom  his 
Father's  house  is  waiting.  The  whole  crea- 
tion is  groaning  and  travailing  until  man  shall 
be  complete. 

As  soon  as  we  understand  all  this,  then 
what  a  great,  clear  thing  salvation  becomes. 
Its  one  idea  is  health.  Not  rescue  from  suffer- 
ing, not  plucking  out  of  fire,  not  deportation 
to  some  strange,  beautiful  region  where  the 
winds  blow  with  other  influences  and  the  skies 
drop  with  other  dews,  not  the  enchaining  of 
the  spirit  with  some  unreal  celestial  spell,  but 
health, — the  cool,  calm  vigor  of  the  normal 
human  life;  the  making  of  the  man  to  be 
himself;  the  calling  up  out  of  the  depths  of 
his  being  and  the  filling  with  vitality  of  that 
self  which  is  truly  he, — this  is  salvation! 

V.  7.  9. 


In  Christ  I  touch  the  hand  of  God, 
From  His  pure  height  reached  down, 

By  blessed  ways  before  untrod 
To  lift  us  to  our  crown; 

Victory  that  only  perfect  is 

Through  loving  sacrifice,  like  His. 

Lucy  Larcom. 


28o  OCTOBER    7. 


He  answered  and  said,  Who  is  He,  Lord,  that 
I  might  believe  on  Him  ?  And  Jesus  saith  unto 
him,  Thou  hast  both  seen  Him,  a?id  it  is  He  that 
talketh  with  thee. — John  ix.  36,  37. 

HOW  touching  in   this  special   story  is  the 
allusion  to  the  light  which  the  Lord  had 
given  only  that  day! 

Jesus  reminds  him  of  the  lower  mercy  that 
He  may  assure  him  of  the  higher.  ...  It  is 
as  the  Saviour  of  the  past  life  that  He  offers 
Himself  for  the  future. 

There  have  been  great  creative  moments  in 
the  history  of  the  world,  as  all  history  and 
science  seem  to  show, — moments  when  after 
long,  silent  preparations,  suddenly  the  old 
order  broke  and  a  new,  as  if  by  magic,  came 
into  its  place.  So  it  has  been  in  physical  and 
social  and  political  history.  But  in  neither 
was  there  any  magic.  The  same  force  which 
was  in  the  last  changing  conviction  had  been 
in  all  the  preparation.  The  flower  is  but  the 
ripening  of  the  same  juices  that  built  the 
stem.  So  it  is  with  conversion  to  the  very 
last.  The  Christ  who  in  eternity  opens  the 
last  concealment,  and  lays  His  comfort  and 
life  close  to  the  deepest  needs  of  the  poor, 
needy,  human  heart,  is  the  same  Christ  that 
first  laid  hands  upon  the  blind  eyes,  and  made 
them  see  the  sky  and  flowers. 

V.  213,  214. 


No  stranger,  but  the  Friend  unseen, 
Who  from  the  first  thy  Friend  hath  been. 


.    OCTOBER    8.  281 


WHAT  will  heaven  be  ?  .  .  .  I  find  manifold 
fitness  in  the  answer  that  tells  us  it  shall 
be  "  a  sea  of  glass  mingled  with  fire."  Heaven 
will  not  be  pure  stagnation,  not  idleness,  not 
any  mere  luxurious  dreaming  over  the  spirit- 
ual repose  that  has  been  safely  and  forever 
won;  but  active,  tireless,  earnest  work;  fresh, 
live  enthusiasm  for  the  high  labors  which 
eternity  will  offer.  These  vivid  inspirations 
will  play  through  our  deep  repose  and  make  it 
more  mighty  in  the  service  of  God  tban  any 
feverish  and  unsatisfied  toil  of  earth  1  .  s  ever 
been.  The  sea  of  glass  will  be  minglc-d  with 
fire. 

Here  too  we  have  the  type  and  standard  of 
that  heavenliness  of  character  which  ought  to 
be  ripening  in  all  of  us  now,  as  we  are  getting 
ready  for  that  spiritual  life.  .  .  .  Surely, 
there  is  a  very  high  and  happy  life  conceiv- 
able, which  very  few  of  us  attain,  yet  which 
our  religion  evidently  intends  for  all  of  us. 
Calm  and  active;  peaceful  and  yet  thoroughly 
alive;  resting  always  upon  truth,  but  never 
sleeping  on  it  for  a  moment;  working  always 
intensely,  but  serene  and  certain  of  results, 
never  driven  crazy  by  our  work;  grounded  and 
settled,  yet  always  moving  forward  in  still  but 
sure  progress;  always  secure,  yet  always  alert, 
— glass  mingled  with  fire.  IV.  125,  126. 

I  dare  not  pray  to  Thee  to  give 
The  heaven  which  shall  appear; 

My  cry  is:   Help  me  Thou  to  live 
Within  the  heaven  that's  here! 
^  Alice  Gary. 


282  OCTOBER 


NO  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time,"  said 
Jesus,  but  [beyond  death]  the  power 
of  the  new  life  is  to  be  that  "we  shall  see 
Him  as  He  is."  It  is  our  privilege  to  dwell 
upon  the  untold,  unguessed  glory  of  the  world 
that  is  to  come.  It  is  a  poor  economy  of 
spiritual  motive  which  tries  to  make  heaven 
real  by  taking  out  of  it  all  thought  of  inex- 
pressible and  new  delight,  and  bringing  it 
down  to  the  tame  repetition  of  the  scenes  and 
ways  of  earth.  But  no  one  listens  to  the  talk 
or  reads  the  books  which  are  written  about 
heaven,  without  feeling  that  the  glory  and  de- 
light which  they  speak  of  are  far  too  com- 
pletely separated  in  kind  from  any  which  this 
world's  experience  has  taught  us  how  to 
value.  It  ought  not  to  be  so.  The  highest, 
truest  thought  of  heaven  which  man  can  have 
is  of  the  full  completion  of  those  processes 
whose  beginning  he  has  witnessed  here, — their 
completion  into  degrees  of  perfectness  as  yet 
inconceivable,  but  still  one  in  kind  with  what 
he  is  aware  of  now. 

V.  303. 

Our  Past  had  held  our  Future,  like  a  rose 
That  may  not  yet  its  perfect  self  disclose. 

Lest  angry  winds  should  scatter  and  molest; 
So,  shut  within  this  narrow  bud,  its  woes 

Were  but   the  crumpled  leaves  too  closely 
pressed, 
And  all  its  loveliness  did  but  enclose 

The  germ  of  after  beauty — now  a  Guest, 
But  soon  to  be  a  Dweller. 

Dora  Gbjeenwell. 


OCTOBER    lo.  283 

Whosoever  exalte th  himself  shall  be  abased ; 
and  he  that  humblcth  himself  shall  be  exalted. 

Luke  xiv.  11. 

SET  a  man  to  work,  and  if  he  were  great 
enough  to  be  humble  at  all,  his  work 
would  bring  him  to  humility.  He  would  be 
brought  face  to  face  with  facts.  He  would 
measure  himself  against  the  eternal  pillars  of 
the  universe.  He  would  learn  the  blessed 
lesson  of  his  own  littleness  in  the  way  in  which 
it  is  always  learnt  most  blessedly,  by  learning 
the  largeness  of  larger  things.  And  all  this, 
which  the  ordinary  occupations  of  life  do  for 
our  ordinary  powers,  Christianity,  with  the 
work  that  it  furnishes  for  our  affections  and 
our  hopes,  does  for  the  higher  parts  of  us. 

It  seems  to  come  to  this,  that  Christianity 
is  the  religion  of  the  broadest  truthfulness.  It 
does  not  set  men  at  any  work  of  mere  resolu- 
tion, saying,  *'  Come,  now,  let  us  be  hum- 
ble." That  would  but  multiply  the  endless 
specimens  of  useless  self-mortification.  But 
true  Christianity  puts  men  face  to  face  with 
the  humbling  fac^.s,  the  great  realities,  and 
then  humility  comes  upon  the  soul,  as  dark- 
ness comes  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  not  be- 
cause the  earth  has  made  up  its  mind  to  be 
dark,  but  because  it  has  rolled  into  the  great 
shadow.  I.  350,  351. 


284  OCTOBER    IT. 

"  His  state 
Is  kingly,      Tliousands  at  his  bidding  speed 
And  post  o'er  land  and  ocean  without  rest," 

TO  live  in  such  a  universe  of  obedient  activ- 
ity, to  feel  its  movement,  to  be  sensible 
of  its  gloriousness,  and  yet  to  make  no  active 
part  of  it  would  be  dreadful.  Milton  felt  this, 
and  in  his  last  great  line  was  compelled  to 
pierce  down  to  the  deepest  truth  about  the 
matter,  and  assert  that  he,  too,  even  in  his 
blindness,  had  share  in  the  obedience  of  the 
untiring  worlds: 

**  They  also  serve  who  only  stand  and  wait." 

Here  is  the  deepest  reason,  here  is  the  rea- 
sonable glory  of  that  which  is  perpetually  ex- 
alted and  belauded  in  cheap  and  superficial 
ways — the  excellence  of  work,  the  glory  of 
activity.  Many  of  our  familiar  human  in- 
stincts live  and  act  by  deeper  powers  than 
they  know.  That  which  is  really  the  noble, 
the  divine  element  in  the  perpetual  activity  of 
man  is  the  sympathy  of  the  obedient  universe. 
The  circling  stars,  the  flowing  rivers,  the  grow- 
ing trees,  the  whirling  atoms,  the  rushing 
winds, — all  things  are  in  obedient  action, 
doing  the  will  of  God.  It  is  the  healthy  im- 
pulse of  any  true  man  who  finds  himself  in 
this  active  world  to  share  in  its  activity.  It  is 
the  healthy  shame  of  any  true  man  to  find 
himself  left  out,  having  no  part  in  that  obe- 
dience which  keeps  all  life  alive. 

V.  265. 


OCTOBER    12.  285 

AMERICA  was  discovered  in  the  fulness  of 
time.  First  there  had  to  come  the  long 
education  of  the  world  which  made  possible 
the  energy  and  patience  and  skill  that  achieved 
the  task.  And  then  we  can  see  how  it  had  to 
be  kept  until  the  pressure  of  the  crowded  life 
of  the  old  world  called  for  another  continent 
to  work  out  to  greater  issues  the  problem  of 
human  history.  Then  the  great  curtain  was 
withdrawn — then,  in  the  fulness  of  time. 

So  let  men  work  away  with  their  statistics 
and  their  averages  and  prove  how  beautifully 
under  all  our  life  there  run  the  great  necessi- 
ties of  God.  .  .  .  The  curse  or  blessing  cause- 
less cannot  come.  And  into  the  clear  light  of 
all  such  speculations  we  may  look  to  get  a 
clearer  and  more  loving  understanding  of  our 
God.  I  see  Him  now  as  He  stands  holding 
back  the  inventions  and  discoveries  and  insti- 
tutions that  are  to  make  the  next  generation 
glorious — more  glorious  than  ours, — holding 
them  back  until  their  time  is  full.  The  home 
of  the  future,  the  republic  of  the  future,  the 
Church  of  the  future — they  must  be  built  upon 
the  present,  and  they  must  wait  until  their 
foundations  shall  be  laid. 

VII.  57,  60. 


God's  gracious  purpose  comes  to  fulfilment 
Never  too  soon  and  never  too  late; 

Bright  o'er  the  clouded  arch  of  His  future 
Shineth  the  legend:    Trust  thou  ami  watt. 

J.  L.  M.  \V. 


286  OCTOBER    13. 


WHO  are  the  men  who  have  succeeded  in 
the  best  way, — who  have  done  good 
work  while  they  lived,  and  have  left  their  lives 
like  monuments  for  the  inspiration  of  man- 
kind ?  They  are  the  men  who  have  .  .  .  ques- 
tioned the  circumstances  in  which  they  found 
themselves,  and  asked  what  was  the  best  thing 
which  any  man  in  just  those  circumstances 
might  set  himself  to  do  ?  These  are  the  men 
before  whom  there  rises  by-and-by  a  dream, 
which  later  gathers  itself  into  a  hope,  and  at 
last  solidifies  into  an  achievement.  Colum- 
bus discovers  America  because  he  is  Colum- 
bus, and  because  the  study  of  geography  and 
the  enterprise  of  men  have  reached  just  this 
point.  Luther  kindles  the  Reformation  be- 
cause he  is  Luther,  and  because  the  dry  wood 
of  the  papacy  has  come  to  just  the  right  in- 
flammability. You  and  I,  who  are  not  Luthers 
nor  Columbuses,  but  simply,  by  the  grace  of 
God,  earnest,  true-hearted  men,  conceive  some 
purpose  for  our  lives  and  keep  it  clear  before 
us,  praying  that  we  may  not  die  before  we 
do  it;  and  at  last  doing  it  before  we  die,  be- 
cause we  are  we,  and  because  the  world  in 
which  we  live  is  just  the  world  it  is. 

IV.  322. 


Such  faith,  O  God,  our  souls  sustain. 
Free,  true,  and  calm,  in  joy  and  pain. 
That  even  by  our  fidelity 
Thy  Kingdom  may  the  nearer  be! 

Samuel  Longfellow. 


OCTOBER   14.  287 

'Tis  sorrow  builds  the  shining  ladder  up, 
Whose  golden  rounds  are  our  calamities, 
Whereon  our  firm  feet  planting,  nearer  God 
The  spirit  climbs,  and  hath  its  eyes  unsealed. 
James  Russell  Lowell, 

THE  final  purpose  of  all  consolation  and 
help  is  revelation.  The  reason  why  we 
are  led  into  trouble  and  out  again  is  not  merely 
that  we  may  value  happiness  the  more  from 
having  lost  it  once  and  found  it  again,  but 
that  we  may  know  something  which  we  could 
not  know  except  by  that  teaching,  that  we 
may  bear  upon  our  nature  some  impress  which 
could  not  have  been  stamped  except  on  na- 
tures just  so  softened  to  receive  it.       ii.  272. 

Great  truths  are  greatly  won.      Not  found  by 

chance, 

Nor  wafted  on  the  breath  of  summer  dream. 

But  grasped  in  the  great  struggle  of  the  soul, 

Hard    buffeting    with    adverse    wind    and 

stream ; 

And  in  the  day  of  conflict,  fear  and  grief. 
When  the  strong  hand  of  God,  put  forth  in 
might. 
Ploughs  up  the  subsoil  of  the  stagnant  heart, 
And  brings  the  imprisoned  truth-seed  to  the 
light. 

Wrung  from  the  troubled  spirit,  in  hard  hours 
Of  weakness,  solitude,  perchance  of  pain. 

Truth   springs,    like    harvest    from    the    well- 
ploughed  field, 
And  the  soul  feels  it  has  not  wept  in  vain. 

HORATIUS    BONAR. 


OCTOBER    15. 


Because  tJiou  hast  kept  the  word  of  My  patience^ 
I  also  will  keep  thee  from  the  hour  of  temptation. 

Rev.  iii.  10. 

TAKE  the  man  whose  life  has  known  be- 
reavement, who  has  passed  sometime 
through  those  days  and  nights  which  I  may 
not  try  to  describe  to  you,  but  which  come 
up  to  so  many  of  you  as  I  say  the  old  word, 
death.  Days  and  nights  when  he  watched 
the  slow  untwisting  of  some  silver  cord  on 
which  his  very  life  was  hung,  or  suddenly  felt 
the  golden  bowl  dashed  down  and  broken  of 
which  his  very  life  had  drank.  The  first  shock 
became  dulled.  The  first  agony  grew  calm. 
The  lips  subsided  into  serenity.  But  was 
there  not  something  in  him  that  made  him 
greater  and  purer  and  richer  than  of  old; 
something  that  let  any  one  see  who  watched 
the  change,  that  it  was  "  better  to  have  loved 
and  lost  than  never  to  have  loved  at  all  "  ?  A 
whole  new  quality,  that  rich  quality  which  the 
Bible  calls  by  its  large  word  "  patience,"  the 
power  of  his  trial,  was  in  his  new  serenity, 
until  he  died. 

IV.  114. 


Grant  us,  O  Lord,  that  patience  and  that  faith; 
Faith's  patience  imperturbable  in  Thee, 
Hope's  patience  till   the   long-drawn  shad- 
ows flee, 

Love's  patience  unresentful  of  all  scathe. 

Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


OCTOBER    i6. 


THE  soul  which  God  is  training  in  solitude 
thinks  its  life  wasted  because  it  is  cut  off 
from  society,  and  the  soul  that  (xod  keeps  in 
the  very  midst  of  its  fellows  sighs  for  the  joy 
and  culture  of  being  alone. 

If  we  could  only  know  that  in  its  time  only 
is  any  Christian  mood  or  condition  beautiful, 
and  that  God  only  knows  its  time!  When 
the  day  is  over  the  stars  will  come,  and  then 
it  is  good  to  see  them;  but  to  see  them  before 
that,  in  the  sunlight,  you  must  go,  men  say, 
down  to  the  bottom  of  a  well,  where  you  do 
not  belong,  which  is  unnatural  and  unhealthy. 
When  we  have  done  with  earth  the  heaven 
will  come;  and,  till  that,  only  such  heaven — 
and  it  is  not  a  little — as  is  possible  upon  the 
dear  old  earth. 

IV.  257. 


What  Thou  wilt,  O  Father,  give! 
All  is  gain  that  I  receive.    .    .   . 
Let  the  lowliest  task  be  mine, 
Grateful,  so  the  work  be  Thine; 
Let  me  find  the  humblest  place 
In  the  shadow  of  Thy  grace.   .   .   . 
Clothe  with  life  the  weak  intent, 
Let  me  be  the  thing  I  meant; 
Let  me  find  in  Thy  employ 
Peace  that  dearer  is  than  joy; 
Out  of  self  to  love  be  led 
And  to  heaven  acclimated, 
Until  all  things  sweet  and  good 
3eem  my  natural  habitude. 

Whitthor. 


290  OCTOBER    17. 


In  everything  ye  are  enriched  by  Him. 

I  Cor.  i.  4. 

From  Thee  is  all  that  soothes  the  life  of  man, 
His  high  endeavors  and  his  glad  success, 
His  strength  to  suffer  and  his  will  to  serve. 
But  O  Thou  sovereign  Giver  of  all  good. 
Thou     art,    of    all     Thy     gifts.    Thyself    the 

crown; — 
Give  what  Thou  canst,  without  Thee  we  are 

poor, 
And   with   Thee    rich,    take   what    Thou    wilt 

away.  Cowper. 

THE  knowledge  of  God  lies  behind  every- 
thing, behind  all  knowledge,  all  skill,  ail 
life.  That  is  the  sum  of  the  whole  matter. 
And  then  comes  the  great  truth  .  .  .  that  it  is 
only  by  the  experiences  of  the  soul,  only  by 
penitence  for  sin,  only  by  patient  struggle 
after  holiness,  only  by  trust,  by  hope,  by  love, 
does  God  make  Himself  known  to  man.  .  .  . 
As  the  man  becomes  more  pure,  more  peni- 
tent, more  sensitive  to  the  least  touch  of  sin, 
more  passionately  eager  to  be  good,  so  does 
he  grow  for  ever  more  and  more  sure  of  God. 
And  to  him,  thus  growing  ever  surer  of  God, 
the  world  he  lives  in  becomes  clothed  with  an 
ever  diviner  light.   ... 

Of  heaven  it  is  written  that  "  the  Lord  God 
Almighty  and  the  Lamb  are  the  light  thereof." 
This  part  of  heaven  at  least  may  be  begun  be- 
low. Not  merely  the  earth  we  live  in,  but  our 
own  especial  life — our  work,  our  study,  our 
daily  toil — may  live  already  in  the  light  of 
God.  III.  no. 


OCTOBER    i8.  291 


Luke,  the  beloved physicia7i. — Col.  iv.  14. 

OF  Luke  alone  it  would  appear  as  if  he  con- 
tinued to  do  as  a  Christian  the  same 
thing  which  he  had  done  before.  In  him  alone 
we  see  what  since  his  time  has  been  the  natu- 
ral and  normal  type  of  Christian  life, — the 
inspiration  of  a  definite  old  occupation  by  a 
new  spiritual  power,  so  that  it  continued  to 
be  exercised,  and  showed  its  genuine  capacity, 
and  fulfilled  its  true  ideal. 

Luke  must  have  gone  among  his  patients 
saying,  "  I  do  this  by  the  faith  of  the  Son  of 
God."  Tell  me,  when  he  could  say  that,  was 
there  no  holier  sacredness  in  the  finger  which 
he  laid  on  the  sick  man's  pulse  ?  Was  there 
no  truer  sense  of  sympathy  with  the  men  whom 
he  saw  on  every  side  of  him  engaged  in  other 
works  than  his  ? 

Not  by  deserting  your  profession  but  by 
deepening  it,  by  seeking  a  new  life  under  it, 
by  praying  for  and  never  resting  satisfied  until 
you  find  regeneration, — the  new  life  lived  by 
the  faith  of  the  Son  of  God;  so  only  can  your 
life  of  trade  or  art  or  profession  be  redeemed; 
so  only  can  it  become  both  for  you  and  for 
the  world  a  blessed  thing.  The  necessary 
labors  which  the  nature  of  man  and  his  rela- 
tions to  this  earth  demand,  all  done  by  men 
full  of  the  love  of  God,  and  each  using  to  its 
best  the  special  faculty  that  is  in  him, — the 
world  needs  no  other  millennium  than  that. 

V.  219,  224,  227. 


292  OCTOBER    19. 


And  Balak  said  unto  him,  Co7?te,  I  p?'ay  thee, 
unto  afiother  place.  .  .  .  Thou  shalt  see  but  the 
ut7?iost part  of  them,  and  shalt  not  see  them  all: 
and  curse  7ne  them  from  thence. 

Numb,  xxiii.  13. 

THERE  are  parts  of  it  [life]  and  aspects  of  it 
which,  if  they  were  all,  would  make  exist- 
ence an  accursed  thing.  ''Come,"  says  the 
pessimist,  "  you  shall  not  see  the  whole.  I  will 
set  you  where  you  shall  only  see  a  part,  and 
curse  me  it  from  thence."  There  is  where 
pessimism  is  made.  The  man  who  sees  the 
whole  of  life  must  be  an  optimist.  I  know 
dark  points  of  view,  grim  gloomy  crags  of 
moral  vision,  hideous  observatories  on  which 
if  a  man  stands  he  can  see  nothing  but  the 
dreadful  side  of  life,  its  wretchedness,  its  dis- 
appointment, its  distress,  its  reckless,  wanton, 
defiant  sin.  I  can  see  gathered  on  those  hor- 
rible observation  points  the  despisers,  the  re- 
vilers,  the  cursers  of  our  |iuman  life.  I  know 
that  if  I  went  up  there  and  stood  by  their  side, 
my  tongue  would  curse  like  theirs.  But  there 
I  will  not  go.  If  there  be  any  point  whence 
I  can  see  it  all,  however  dimly,  through  what- 
ever clouds,  there  I  will  go.  So  will  I  keep 
my  faith  that  life  is  good,  and  work  with  what 
strength  I  can  against  its  evils,  knowing  that 
I  work  in  hope.  VI.  212. 

**  With  patient  step  thy  path  of  duty  run: 
God  nothing  does  or  suffers  to  be  done. 
But  thou  thyself  would'st  do  it,  didst  thou  see 
The  end  of  all  events  as  well  as  He." 


OCTOBER    20.  293 

Pray  without  ceasing. — 2  Thess.  v.  17. 

pRAYER  involves  far  more  than  we  ordina- 
*-  rily  think, — a  certain  necessary  relation 
between  the  soul  and  God.  The  condition  of 
prayer  is  personal ;  it  looks  to  character.  How 
this  rebukes  our  ordinary  slipshod  notions  of 
what  it  is  to  pray!  God's  mercy-seat  is  no 
mere  stall  set  by  the  vulgar  roadside,  where 
every  careless  passer-by  may  put  an  easy  hand 
out  to  snatch  any  glittering  blessing  that 
catches  his  eye.  It  stands  in  the  holiest  of 
holies.  We  can  come  to  it  only  through  veils 
and  by  altars  of  purification.  To  enter  into 
it,  we  must  enter  into  God. 

VI.  308. 


O  Infinite  of  joy  and  light. 
Wherewith  we  are  surrounded, 

We  lift  our  spirits  to  Thy  height 
Unfathomed  and  unbounded: 

Thy  greatness  drowns  our  petty  cares, 

Thy  heaven  is  in  us,  unawares. 

O  Infinite  of  Righteousness, 
Breath  of  our  inmost  being! 

Thy  purity  will  cleanse  and  bless 
The  soul  from  evil  fleeing: 

We  hide  our  sin-stained  hearts  in  Thee, 

And  pray,  "  As  Thou  art,  let  us  be!  " 

Lucy  Larcom. 


294  OCTOBER    21. 


YOU  cry,  **  O  Lord,  solve  me  this  problem!  " 
and  the  solution  does  not  come.  "  What! 
must  I  walk  in  darkness?"  your  poor  soul 
cries  out;  and  then  He  comes  and  takes  your 
hand  and  says,  "  He  that  followeth  Me  shall 
not  walk  in  darkness,  but  shall  have  the  Light 
of  Life."  In  place  of  the  answef  to  your 
prayer  comes  He  to  whom  you  prayed.  You 
have  not  got  the  solution  of  your  problem;  it 
still  floats  in  doubt.  You  have  not  got  the 
sure  prophecy  of  the  future;  it  is  hid  behind 
the  wavering  and  trembling  veil.  You  have 
not  got  the  brother's  dear  presence  for  whose 
life  you  cried  and  wrestled;  he  is  walking  be- 
side the  river  of  Life  in  the  new  Light  of 
Heaven,  You  have  not  got  what  you  prayed 
for,  but  you  have  got  God!  You  have  the 
source,  the  fountain,  the  sun!  You  have 
taken  hold  of  the  essential  meaning  and  es- 
sence of  all  these  things  for  which  you  prayed, 
in  taking  hold  of  Him  to  whom  you  prayed. 
In  His  silence  you  have  pressed  back  to  Him. 
.  .  .  Not  in  the  word  He  speaks  but  in  the 
word  He  is,  you  have  found  your  reply. 

V.   132. 


Reach  downward  to  the  sunless  days. 
Wherein  our  guides  are  blind  as  we. 
And  faith  is  small  and  hope  delays, — 
Take  Thou  the  hands  of  prayer  we  raise, 
And  let  us  feel  the  light  of  Thee! 

Whittier. 


OCTOBER    22.  295 

A 17 HAT  man  goes  bravely  and  faithfully 
' '^  through  doubt  and  does  not  bring  out 
a  soul  to  which  truth  seems  to  be  infinitely 
precious,  and  the  human  soul  the  most  myste- 
rious, sacred  thing  in  the  world  ?  Out  of  the 
union  of  these  two  persuasions  has  come  the 
prophetship  of  this  life  which  now  you  cannot 
look  at  without  seeing  the  infinite  behind  it 
made  clear  by  it. 

Surely,  if  we  believe  this,  then  the  way  in 
which  God  lets  His  children  encounter  great, 
and  sometimes  terrible,  experiences  is  not  en- 
tirely inexplicable.  Surely  if  these  souls  which 
are  now  deep  in  sorrow,  or  are  being  cast  up 
and  down  and  back  and  forth  in  doubt,  are 
being  thus  annealed  and  purified  that  they 
may  come  to  be  revealers,  mediators  between 
God  and  their  fellow-men,  then  into  our  won- 
der at  the  existence  of  doubt  and  sorrow  in 
God's  world  there  comes  a  little  ray  of  light. 
Who  would  not  bear  anything  that  could  refine 
his  life  into  fitness  for  such  a  privilege  as  that  ? 

IV.  15. 

Happy  they  who  learn  from  crosses. 

Changeful  clouds  and  fears. 
Life  may  richer  be  for  losses, 

Joyfuller  for  tears, 
Faith  by  doubts  be  clearer  made — 
Stronger  doubting  souls  to  aid. 

Julia  Wood. 


296^  OCTOBER    23. 


Though  our  outward  7na?i  perish,  yet  the  inward 
ma7i  is  renewed  day  by  day. — 2  Cor.  iv.  16. 


IT  is  hard  for  us  to  imagine  how  flat  and 
shallow  human  life  would  be  if  there  were 
taken  out  of  it  this  constant  element — the 
coming  up  of  the  spiritual  life  where  the  phys- 
ical life  has  failed.  A  man  who  never  knew  an 
ache  or  a  pain  comes  to  a  break  in  health,  from 
which  he  can  look  out  on  nothing  but  3'ears  of 
sickness  ;  and  then  the  soul  within  him  .  .  . 
claims  its  independence  and  supremacy,  and 
stands  strong  in  the  midst  of  weakness,  calm 
in  the  very  centre  of  the  turmoil  and  panic  of 
the  aching  body.  The  temper  of  the  fickle 
people  changes,  and  the  favorite  of  yesterday 
becomes  the  victim  of  to-day;  but  in  his  mar- 
tyrdom he  sees  for  the  first  time  the  full  value 
of  the  truth  he  dies  for,  and  thanks  the  flames 
that  have  lighted  up  its  preciousness.  .  .  .  By 
this  revelation  of  the  spiritual  through  the 
broken  physical  life  other  men  may  learn  its 
value.  This  is  what  makes  the  sick-rooms  and 
the  martyr-fires  reasonable.  In  them  has  been 
made  manifest  by  suffering  that  the  soul  is 
really  more  than  the  body,  that  the  soul  can 
triumph  when  the  body  has  nothing  left  but 
disease  and  misery. 

I.  II. 


Most  gladly,  therefore,  will  I  rest  in  my  in- 
fir?nities,  that  the  power  of  Christ  ?nay  rest  upon 
me. — 2  Cor.  xii.  9. 


OCTOBER    24.  297 

Arise,  take  up  thy  bed,  a?id  go  into  t hi  fie  house. 

Matt.  ix.  6. 

And  I  saiii  as  it  were  a  sea  of  glass  mingled 
7vith  fire. — Rev.  xv.  2. 

HOW  does  the  fire  get  into  the  sea  of  glass  ? 
...  It  is  repose  mingled  with  struggle 
.  .  .  calmness  still  pervaded  by  the  discipline 
through  which  it  has  been  reached.  .  .  .  You 
may  go  through  the  crowded  streets  of  heaven, 
asking  each  saint  how  he  came  there,  and  you 
will  look  in  vain  everywhere  for  a  man  morally 
and  spiritually  strong,  whose  strength  did  not 
come  to  him  in  struggle.  .  .  .  There  is  no  ex- 
ception anywhere.  Every  poor  soul  that  the 
Lord  heals  goes  up  the  street  like  the  man  at 
Capernaum,  carrying  its  bed  upon  its  back, 
the  trophy  of  its  conquered  palsy.  There 
are  no  glassy  seas  which  will  really  bear  the 
weight  of  strong  men  but  those  that  have  the 
fiery  mingling.  All  others  are  counterfeits, 
and  crack  or  break.  IV.  112,  119,  120. 

Dust  as  we  are,  the  immortal  spirit  grows 
Like  harmony  in  music:   there  is  a  dark, 
Inscrutable  workmanship  that  reconciles 
Discordant   elements,    makes    them    cling    to- 
gether 
In  one  society.      How  strange  that  all 
The  terrors,  pains,  and  early  miseries, 
Regrets,  vexations,   lassitudes  interfused 
Within  my  mind,  should  e'er  have  borne  a  part, 
And  that  a  needful  part,  in  making  up 
The  calm  existence  that  is  mine  when  I 
Am  worthy  of  myself.      Praise  to  the  end! 
Thank?  to  the  means!  Wordsworth. 


298  OCTOBER    25. 

T^HIS  time  of  ours,  these  men  of  ours,  are 
^  marked  by  a  singular  depth  of  personal 
experience.  The  personal  emotions,  the  anxi- 
eties with  regard  to  personal  conditions,  are 
very  intense.  It  is  a  time  of  much  morbid- 
ness, and  so  I  think  that  the  danger  under 
which  men  always  labor,  of  letting  the  universe 
rake  the  color  of  the  windows  of  their  own 
life  through  which  they  look  at  it,  was  never 
so  dangerous  as  to-day.  More  men  to-day 
think  the  world  is  wretched  because  they  are 
sad  and  bewildered,  than  would  have  trans- 
ferred their  own  conditions  to  the  outside  uni- 
verse in  less  introspective  and  self-conscious 
times.  The  simplest  men  in  the  simplest  ages, 
when  they  were  in  sorrow,  opened  their  win- 
dows inward  to  let  the  world's  sunlight  in. 
The  elaborate  and  subtle  men  in  the  elaborate 
and  subtle  ages,  in  their  sorrow,  open  their 
windows  outward  and  darken  the  bright  world 
with  their  darkness.  And  among  such  men, 
in  such  an  age,  we  live. 

II.  157,  158. 


We  make  the  light  through  which  we  see 
The  light,  and  make  the  dark: 

To  hear  the  lark  sing,  we  must  be 
At  heaven's  gate  with  the  lark. 

Alice  Gary. 


OCTOBER    26. 


299 


Our  destiny,  our  being's  heart  and  home, 
Is  with  eternity,  and  only  there. 

Wordsworth. 

T^HE  history  of  man  bears  witness,  that 
^  man,  though  himself  finite,  demands  in- 
finity to  deal  with  and  to  rest  upon;  he  claims 
to  have  relations  with  the  infinite.  That  fact  is 
borne  testimony  to  by  all  the  ages;  that  fact 
is  the  perpetual  witness  of  the  consciousness 
in  man's  heart  that  he  is  the  child  of  God. 
The  child  ma}^  be  reminded  every  moment 
of  his  limitations  and  his  youth,  and  yet  he 
always  mounts  up  to  claim  the  largeness  of 
his  father's  life  for  himself.  And  so  man,  the 
more  you  make  him  feel  his  finiteness,  so  much 
the  more  obstinately  will  he  insist  on  his  right 
to  a  potential  possession  of  the  infinite.  The 
power  of  adoring  love  of  which  he  is  distinctly 
conscious,  brings  him  assurance  that  there  is 
a  being  worthy  of  such  love. 

III.  120,  121. 


Into  the  heaven  of  Thy  heart,  O  God, 
I  lift  up  my  life  like  a  flower; 

Thy  light  is  deep,  and  Thy  love  is  broad, 
And  I  am  not  the  child  of  an  hour. 

Lucy  Larcom. 


300  OCTOBER    27. 

Behold,  as  thou  passest  through  things  mortal, 

And  amidst  creatures  visible. 

Seeking  to  be  contented  with  them. 

Thou  losest  better  things. 

Thou   separatest   thyself   from  the  Sovereign 

Good  when  thou  doest  this, 
And  turnest  away  from  the  true  and  blessed 

life  which  is  eternal. 

Thomas  A  Kempis. 

TTAVE  you  ever  stood  in  the  midst  of  the 
^  -^  world  of  fashion  and  marvelled  how  it 
was  possible  that  men  and  women  should  care, 
as  those  around  you  seemed  to  care,  about  the 
little  conventionalities  which  made  the  scenery 
and  the  problems  of  its  life  ?  .  .  .  There  is  a 
noble  economy  of  the  deepest  life.  .  .  .  The 
people  of  Nazareth  wanted  to  stone  Christ, 
and  He  quietly  passed  away  and  left  them  with 
their  stones  in  their  hands;  but  the  cross  de- 
manded Him,  and  He  went  up  to  the  terri- 
ble experience  with  a  soul  consecrated  to 
endure  it  all,  and  spared  Himself  not  one  blow 
of  the  scourge  upon  the  shoulders,  and  not 
one  piercing  of  the  nails  into  the  hands  and 
feet.  He  knew  what  was  worth  while;  and 
He  knew  that  because  He  was  one  with  God, 
the  Son  of  God  could  not  count  the  great 
little  nor  the  little  great.  That  was  the  secret 
of  His  perfect  life. 

V.  247,  248,  251. 


OCTOBER    28.  301 


And  when  it  was  day,  He  called  unto  Hi7n  His 
disciples,  and  of  them  He  chose  twelve,  whom  He 
also  named  Apostles. — Luke  vi.  13. 

THINK  what  they  must  have  been  before 
they  knew  their  master.  The  open  life  of 
free  and  thoughtless  young  men  they  must  have 
lived,  easily  making  friends,  easily  entering 
into  everybody's  superficial  interests  because 
they  had  only  superficial  feelings  of  their  own, 
liking  to  be  liked,  and  full  of  ready  sympathies. 
Then  they  met  Jesus.  They  were  drawn  away 
to  Him.  By  Him  they  were  drawn  in  upon 
themselves.  To  know  Him  and  their  own 
deeper  lives  in  Him,  became  their  longing. 
.  .  .  Their  lives  were  folded  in  upon  them- 
selves, and  upon  Him  who  was  at  the  centre  of 
each.  But  by-and-by  a  new  power  began  to 
work  at  the  unfolded  heart.  He  who  had 
drawn  them  in  upon  Himself  began  to  send 
them  abroad.  Another  kind  of  love  for  their 
old  friends,  and  all  the  world  whom  those 
friends  represented,  came  to  them.  They  be- 
gan to  be  seen  again  upon  the  streets.  Only 
now  they  are  telling  every  one  of  the  new  life. 
They  have  been  drawn  in  from  the  world  upon 
Christ,  that  He  might  send  them  out,  full  of 
Himself,  into  the  world.  IV.  159. 

And  that  Thou  sayest  "  Go!  " 
Our  hearts  are  glad,  for  he  is  still  Thy  friend 
And  best  beloved  of  all,  whom  Thou  dost  send 

The  farthest  from  Thee;  this  Thy  servants 
know: 
Oh,  serd  by  whom  Thou  wilt,  for  they  are  blest 
Who  go  Thy  errands.  Dora  Greenwell. 


302  OCTOBER    29. 

If  they  drmk  any  deadly  things  it  shall  ?iot  hurt 
them  J  they  shall  lay  hands  on  the  sick,  and  they 
shall  recover. — Mark  xvi.  19. 

IS  that  a  prize  ?  Is  it  wages  which  is  offered 
for  a  certain  meritorious  act  which  is 
called  faith  ?  Not  so,  surely!  It  is  a  conse- 
quence. It  is  a  necessity.  Safety  and  help- 
fulness. These  come  out  of  the  full  life  of 
Christ  in  the  soul  of  man  as  the  inevitable 
fruits.  Safety,  so  that  what  hurts  other  men 
shall  not  hurt  him.  Helpfulness,  so  that  his 
brethren  about  him  shall  live  by  his  life.  .  .  . 
It  is  by  life,  by  full,  vigorous,  emphatic  exist- 
ence that  men  are  safe  in  this  world,  and  that 
they  save  other  men  from  death.  I  glory  in 
such  a  statement  as  that.  It  makes  my  Bible 
shine.  Men  everywhere  are  trying  to  be  safe 
by  stifling  life;  by  living  just  as  low  as  possi- 
ble. Men  everywhere  are  trying  not  to  do 
one  another  harm,  trying  to  spare  each 
other's  souls  by  tender  petting,  by  guarding 
them  against  any  vigorous  contact  with  life  and 
thought.  The  Bible  comes  glowing  with  pro- 
test. "  Not  so,"  it  says.  "  Only  by  the  ful- 
ness of  life  does  safety  come.  Only  by  the 
power  of  contact  with  life  are  sick  and  help- 
less souls  made  whole.  None  but  the  live  man 
saves  himself  or  quickens  the  dead  to  life; 
saves  himself  or  saves  his  neighbor." 

IV.  337- 

Light  is  light  which  radiates. 
Blood  is  blood  which  circulates, 
Life  is  life  which  generates. 

Emerson. 


OCTOBER   30.  303 

Hold  hard,  hope  hard,  in  the  subtle  thing 
That's  spirit;  though  cloistered  fast,  soar  free. 

Browning. 

I  THINK  there  never  was  a  materialist  so 
complete  that  he  did  not  realize  that  the 
great  mass  of  men  were  not  materialists,  but 
believed  in  spiritual  forces  and  longed  for 
spiritual  companies.  He  might  think  the  spir- 
itual tendency  the  wildest  of  delusions,  but 
he  could  not  doubt  its  prevalence.  How 
could  he  ?  Here  is  the  whole  earth  full  of  it. 
Language  is  all  shaped  upon  it.  Thought  is 
all  saturated  with  it.  In  the  most  imposing 
and  the  most  vulgar  methods,  by  solemn  ora- 
cles and  rocking  tables,  men  have  been  always 
trying  to  put  themselves  into  communication 
with  the  spiritual  world  and  to  get  counsel 
and  help  from  within  the  veil.  And  if  we 
hear  the  cry  from  one  another,  how  much  more 
God  hears  it,  .  .  .  and  has  prepared  a  way  of 
aid.  The  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost! — an  ever- 
lasting spiritual  presence  among  men.  What 
but  that  is  the  thing  we  want  ?  That  is  what  the 
old  oracles  were  dreaming  of,  what  the  modern 
spiritualists  are  fumbling  after.  The  power 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  .  .  .  that  is  God's  one 
great  response  to  the  unconscious  need  of 
spiritual  guidance  which  He  hears  crying  out 
of  the  deep  heart  of  every  man.  n.  105. 

Heavenly  things  my  soul  hath  seen, — 
Things  the  Holy  Spirit  shows, — 

Things  on  which  the  heart  can  lean 
When  the  flesh  has  no  repose. 

Anna  L.  Waring. 


304  OCTOBER   31. 


In  everything  by  prayer  and  supplication  . 
let  your  requests  be  ?ftade  known  unto  God. 

Phil.  iv.  6. 


TRUE,  the  most  earnest  Christian  may  err 
about  the  will  of  God.  He  may  pray 
for  sunshine  when  it  is  the  will  of  God  that  it 
should  rain.  He  may  ask  for  comfort  when 
it  is  God's  will  that  he  should  suffer.  But 
this  can  only  come  in  superficial  things.  In 
the  one  central  thing  of  all — his  own  spiritual 
life — he  cannot  err.  He  knows  that  "  this  is 
the  will  of  God,  even  his  sanctification."  He 
may  cry  out  for  that  with  perfect  certainty; 
and  for  all  other  things,  if  he  prays  as  every 
Christian  ought,  submitting  his  prayer  to 
God's  revision,  "Nevertheless,  not  my  will, 
but  Thine  be  done;"  then,  whether  the  spe- 
cial blessing  that  he  asked  is  sent  or  not,  the 
larger  petition  with  which  he  covered  in  and 
included  his  lesser  one  is  surely  answered. 
The  thing  he  really  "willed"  is  "done  unto 
him." 

VI.  305. 


"  Not  as  I  will  ":  the  sound  grows  sweet 
Each  time  my  lips  the  words  repeat.   .   . 
"  Not  as  I  will,"  because  the  One 
Who  loved  us  first  and  best  has  gone 
Before  us  on  the  road,  and  still 
For  us  must  all  His  love  fulfil 
"  Not  as  we  will." 

Helen  Hunt  Jackson. 


NOVEMBER    i.  305 


The  riches  of  the  glory  of  His  inheritafice  in 
the  saints. — Ephes.  i.  18. 


T  AM  sure  that  the  world  is  a  better  place  for 
-^  you  and  me  to  live  in  to-day,  not  merely 
for  the  hundred  great  pattern  lives  which  have 
passed  into  the  heavens  and  which  we  call  still 
by  their  names,  but  far  more  for  the  countless, 
nameless  multitude  of  men  and  women  who 
have  wrought  into  the  very  substance  of  the 
earth,  where  at  last  they  lay  their  bodies  in 
unnoticed  graves,  the  great,  first,  simplest 
words  of  God — that  man  was  sacred,  that 
duty  was  possible,  that  self-sacrifice  was 
sweet,  and  that  love  for  one's  brother  was  the 
crown  of  life.  And  you  ought  not  to  be  sat- 
isfied until  you  find  yourself  able  to  feel  that 
the  hope  of  doing  something  by  your  living 
to  make  the  world  in  a  real,  although  an  un- 
appreciable,  degree  more  full  of  these  words 
for  the  men  who  are  to  follow  us,  is  the  noblest 
and  most  inspiring  promise  which  can  be  set 

before  your  soul. 

VI.  268. 


For  he  who  blesses  most  is  blest. 

And  God  and  man  shall  own  his  worth 

Who  toils  to  leave  as  his  bequest 
Axi  added  beauty  to  the  earth. 

Whittier. 


3o6  NOVEMBER    2. 

WE  have  all  stood  upon  the  margin  which 
was  the  farthest  which  feet  untransfig- 
ured  by  death  might  reach,  and  sent  some 
beloved  soul  into  the  unknown  world.  Where 
have  we  sent  it  ?  To  God,  we  say,  bowing  our 
heads  with  resignation.  But  is  there  no  bleak- 
ness, no  forlornness  in  our  answer  ?  God  is 
so  far  off!  However  loving,  kind,  or  wise, 
He  is  all  God;  the  child  we  sent  Him  was  all 
man  in  his  fresh,  genuine  humanity.  But  what 
if  there  be  a  humanity  in  God  to  which  they 
go  ?  What  if,  since  it  went  out  from  us,  that 
human  nature,  made  first  in  the  image  of 
Christ  the  human,  has  touched  again  that  per- 
fect nature  out  of  which  it  sprang  and  finds 
itself  at  home  ?  Yes,  let  me  set  this  Christ 
eternally  in  the  midst  of  the  other  world,  and 
then  the  human  soul  that  goes  there  goes  to 
its  own.  It  meets  no  strangeness  on  the  other 
shore.  .  .  .  The  child  is  gathered  into  the 
arms  of  a  fatherhood  and  knows  no  strange- 
ness or  surprise.  The  brother  clasps  hands 
with  a  newer  and  more  trusty  brotherhood. 
.  .  .  They  go  to  Jesus  and  rest  in  Him,  and 
wait  for  us  till  our  humanity,  made  perfect  too 
by  death,  shall  find  its  place  beside  them. 

VI.  325. 


Praise  God  the  Shepherd  is  so  sweet! 

Praise  God  the  Country  is  so  fair! 
We  could  not  hold  them  from  His  feet; 

We  can  but  haste  to  meet  them  there. 

B.  M. 


NOVEMBER   3.  307 


IV/iOy  passing  through  the  valley  of  Baca,  make 
it  a  well. — Ps.  Ixxxiv.  6. 


IN  man,  the  user,  rests  the  real  nature  of  the 
things  he  uses.       They  have  no  invariable, 
fixed  nature  apart  from  him. 

Now,  let  this  great  user,  man,  this  one 
moral  force,  be  called  upon  to  go  down  into 
the  vale  of  misery.  He  finds  there  all  the 
circumstances  of  suffering — poverty,  sickness, 
bereavement,  sin  itself;  what  then  ?  these  are 
things,  and  he  is  man.  Let  him  rule  them, 
not  be  ruled  by  them.  Let  him  take  down 
there  a  religious,  trustful  nature,  a  pious, 
cheerful  heart,  and  there  is  more  promised 
him  than  just  that  his  cheerful  piety  shall  sup- 
port him  through;  he  shall  exercise  his  human 
right  of  ruling  and  using  these,  and  shall  come 
out  with  a  more  perfect  joy  and  certain  faith 
than  he  carried  in.  He  shall  not  come  out 
half-dead  with  thirst,  just  able  to  drag  himself 
up  to  the  fountain  at  the  end,  but  it  shall  be 
as  David  so  beautifully  says:  "  He  shall  drink 
of  the  brook  in  the  way,  therefore  shall  he 
lift  up  his  head." 

VI.  28. 


O  Lord,  of  good  the  fountain  free, 
Close  by  our  hard  day's  journeying, 
Be  Thou  the  all-sufficing  spring. 

And  hourly  let  us  drink  of  Thee! 

Susan  CooLmoE. 


3o8  NOVEMBER   4. 

When  no  low  thoughts  of  self  intrude, 

Angels  adjust  our  rights; 
But  love  that  seeks  its  selfish  good 

Dies  in  its  own  delights. 

How  much  we  take,  how  little  give! 

Yet  every  life  is  meant 
To  help  all  lives;  each  man  should  live 

For  all  men's  betterment. 

Alice  Gary. 

MEN  think  that  they  can  be  safe  without 
being  helpful,  and  thence  come  all  the 
selfish  notions  of  salvation.  Merely  to  crawl 
through  life  with  face  and  mouth  so  bandaged 
up  with  caution  that  the  foul  air  of  life  cannot 
affect  us;  merely  to  strike  out  from  the  wreck 
of  a  fallen  w^orld  and  swim  ashore,  shaking  off 
all  the  drowning  men  who  clutch  at  us  in  the 
wild  water,  and  leaving  the  screaming  wretches 
to  their  fate,— the  man  who  seeks  salvation 
so,  finds  at  last  to  his  disappointment  and  dis- 
may that  he  is  not  saved.  It  is  not  the  hands 
that  catch  us  and  hold  on  to  us,  it  is  the 
hands  of  helpless  men  which  we  shake  off  in 
our  selfishness  that  drag  us  down.       iv.  347. 

Wherever  upward — even  the  lowest  round — 
Man    by    a    hand's    help    lifts    his    feebler 
brother. 
There  is  the  house  of  God,  and  holy  ground: 
The  gate  of  heaven  is  Love;  there  is  none 
other. 
When    generous    act    blooms    from    unselfish 

thought. 
The  Tord  is  with  us,  though  we  know  it  not. 

Lucy  Larcom. 


NOVEMBER    5.  309 


IT  is  not  only  the  suffering  in  life  that  needs 
to  be  spoken  to  and  helped.  There  is 
something  else,  I  think,  that  is  almost  more 
exhausting  than  suffering  in  its  constant  wear- 
ing pressure  upon  the  hearts  of  men.  It  is 
that  feeling  of  the  insignificance  of  life  that 
often  grows  so  hard  to  bear,  .  .  .  the  wonder 
whether  it  means  anything,  the  utter  loss  of 
any  insight  into  what  it  means — this  work  of 
living.  .  .  .  Who  can  speak  to  and  dispel  this 
spectre  ?  Who  can  tell  us  with  authority  that 
life  has  a  meaning,  and  make  us  see  it  and 
rejoice  to  live  for  it  ?  Who  but  the  gospel  of 
reconciliation  ?  If  that  is  true,  if  all  these 
heavenly  forces  are  at  work  upon  our  life,  if 
all  this  watchful  interest  hovers  over  what  we 
are  doing,  if  we  may  really  go  on  and  be  the 
children  of  God,  where  is  there  any  insignifi- 
cant detail  ?  Who  can  help  itt\\\\% purpose  run 
like  life-blood  through  the  half-dried  veins  of 
his  discouragement  ?  How  life  lifts  itself  up 
with  interest  and  dignity  when  it  really  be- 
comes the  culture  of  God's  redeemed  children 
for  their  Father's  house! 


VII.  107. 


I  hear  from  all-wards,  allwise  understand, 
The  great  bird   Purpose  bears  me  'twixt  her 

wings. 
And  I  am  one  of  all  the  kinsmen  things 
That  e'er  my  Father  fathered.     Oh,  to  me 
All  questions  solve  in  this  tranquillity! 

Sidney  Lanier. 


3IO  NOVEMBER   6. 


f^  REAT  is  the  power  of  a  life  which  knows 

^-^     that  its  highest  experiences  are  its  truest 

experiences,  that  it  is  most  itself  when  it  is  at 

its  best.      For  it  each  high  achievement,  each 

splendid   vision,    is   a   sign   and  token   of  the 

whole  nature's  possibility.     What  a  piece  of 

the  man  was  for  that  shining  instant,  it  is  the 

duty  of    the   whole   man   to   be   always.    .   .   . 

Strive  for   your  best,  that  there  you  may  find 

your  most  distinctive  life.      We  cannot  dream 

of  what    interest    the    world    will   have   when 

every  being  in  its  human  multitude  shall  shine 

with  his  own  light  and  color,  and  be  the  child 

of  God  which   it   is  possible  for  him  to  be, — 

which  he  has  ever  been  in  the  true  home-land 

of  his  Father's  thought. 

The  hope  of  the  world  is  in  the  ever  richer 

naturalness  of  the  highest  life. 

V.  21,  22,  23. 


Upward  the  soul  forever  turns  her  eyes; 

The  next  hour  always  shames  the  hour  before; 

One  beauty,  at  its  highest,  prophesies 

That  by  whose  side  it  shall   seem   mean  and 

poor. 
No  Godlike  thing  knows  aught  of  less  and  less, 
But  widens  to  the  boundless  perfectness. 

James  Russell  Lowell. 


NOVEMBER    7.  311 


For  we  wrestle  not  agai?ist  flesh  and  bloody  hut 
against  principalities^  against  powers,  against  the 
rulers  of  the  darkness  of  this  world. 

Ephes.  vi.  12. 

LIFE  is  a  battle.  .  .  .  The  merchant  is 
fighting  with  the  competition  of  his 
brethren.  The  legislator  is  fighting  with  the 
barbarous  tendencies  which  still  haunt  the 
most  civilized  societies.  The  philanthropists 
are  fighting  with  abuses  and  ignorance  and 
cruelty.  And  everywhere  man,  hopefully  or 
hopelessly,  is  fighting  with  what  he  calls  his 
fate, — the  general  aggregate  of  things  about 
him  which  seems  set  to  keep  him  down  and  to 
impede  his  way.  The  world  is  full  of  all  these 
ideas  of  battle.  And  then  right  into  the  midst 
of  them  steps  Paul,  with  his  clear,  ringing 
Christian  word,  "What  are  you  fighting 
with  ?  Do  you  ask  that  ?  "  he  says.  "  Lo,  I 
can  tell  you.  You  are  fighting  with  great 
evil  principles  and  powers,  .  .  .  The  rivalry 
of  men,  imperfect  institutions,  cruel  habits, — 
all  those  are  ugly  enemies,  but  the  real  enemy 
is  Badness  itself.     The  real  fight  is  with  that." 

VI.  71,  72,  73. 

But  shall  I  shun  the  sacred  fight 

Which  good  maintains  with  ill  ? 
No:  strong  in  my  Redeemer's  might, 

Be  mine  to  wrestle  still. 
Here  only,  in  this  strife. 

Can  I  His  soldier  be; 
Here  only  spend  or  lose  a  life 

For  Him  who  died  for  me. 

J.   CONDER. 


312  NOVEMBER    8. 

And  to  keep  himself  unspotted  from  the  world. 

James  i.  27. 

WE  set  out  for  the  battle  in  the  morning 
strong  and  clean.  By  and  by  we  catch  a 
moment  in  the  lull  of  the  struggle  to  look  down 
upon  ourselves,  and  how  tired  and  how  cov- 
ered with  dust  and  blood  we  are.  How  long 
back  our  first  purity  seems — how  long  the  day 
seems  sometimes — how  long  since  we  began  to 
live.  You  know  what  stains  are  on  your  lives. 
Each  of  us  knows,  every  man  and  woman. 
They  burn  to  our  eyes,  even  if  no  neighbor 
sees  them.  They  burn  in  the  still  air  of  the 
Sabbath  even  if  we  do  not  see  them  in  the 
week.  You  would  not  think  for  the  world 
that  your  children  should  grow  up  to  the  same 
stains  that  have  fastened  upon  you.  You 
dream  for  them  of  a  **  life  unspotted  from  the 
world,"  and  the  very  anxiety  of  that  dream 
proves  how  you  know  that  your  own  life  is 
spotted  and  stained. 

I.  176. 

Whiteness  most  white.     Ah,  to  be  clean  again 
In    mine   own   sight   and   God's   most    holy 
sight! 
To  reach  through  any  flood  and  fire  of  pain 
Whiteness  most  white; 

To  learn  to  hate  the  wrong  and  love  the  right. 
Even  while  I  walk  through  shadows  that  are 
vain. 
Descending  through  vain  shadows  into  night. 
Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


NOVEMBER   9.  313 


IT  is  wonderful  how  mere  power,  or  mere 
brightness,  will  win  the  confidence  and 
admiration  of  men  from  whom  we  might  have 
expected  better  things.  A  bright  book  or  a 
bright  play  will  draw  the  crowd,  although  its 
meaning  be  detestable.  A  clever  man  will 
make  a  host  of  boys  and  men  stand  like 
charmed  birds  while  he  draws  their  principles 
quietly  out  of  them,  and  leaves  them  moral 
idiots.  A  whole  great  majority  of  a  commu- 
nity will  rush  like  foolish  sheep  to  the  polls 
and  vote  for  a  man  whom  they  know  is  false 
and  brutal,  because  they  have  learned  to  say 
that  he  is  strong.  All  this  is  true  enough; 
and  yet  while  men  do  these  wild  and  foolish 
things,  they  know  the  difference  between  the 
illumination  of  a  human  life  that  is  kindled 
from  above  and  that  which  is  kindled  from 
below.  They  know  the  pure  flames  of  one 
and  the  lurid  glare  of  the  other;  and  however 
they  may  praise  and  follow  wit  and  power,  as 
if  to  be  witty  or  powerful  were  an  end  sufli- 
cient  in  itself,  they  will  always  keep  their 
sacredest  respect  and  confidence  for  that 
power  or  wit  which  is  inspired  by  God,  and 
works  for  righteousness. 

II.  12. 


Oh,  we  are  sunk  enough,  God  knows!  but  not 

quite  so  sunk  that  moments, 
Sure,  though  seldom,  are  denied  us,  when  the 

spirit's  true  endowments 
Stand  out  plainly  from  its  false  ones. 

Browning. 


314  NOVEMBER    lo. 


With  twain  he  covered  his  face. — Is.  vi.  2. 

YOU  can  know    nothing  which  you  do  not 
reverence.     You  can  see  nothing  before 
which  you  do  not  veil  your  eyes! 

All  of  the  mystery  which  surrounds  and 
pervades  life  is  really  one  mystery.  It  is  God. 
Called  by  His  name,  taken  up  into  His  being, 
it  is  filled  with  graciousness.  It  is  no  longer 
cold  and  hard;  it  is  all  warm  and  soft  and 
palpitating.  It  is  love.  And  of  this  personal 
mystery  of  love — of  God — it  is  supremely  true 
that  only  by  reverence,  only  by  the  hiding  of 
the  eyes,  can  He  be  seen.  He  who  thinks 
to  look  God  full  in  the  face  and  question 
Him  about  His  existence,  blinds  himself  there- 
by, and  cannot  see  God.  He  sees  something, 
but  what  he  sees  is  not  God,  but  himself. 
There  is  in  Christ  the  continual  awx  of  a 
nature  from  the  perfect  knowledge  of  which 
the  conditions  of  His  human  life  excluded 
Him.  And  if  He  could  not  know  the  Father 
perfectly  while  He  lived  here  in  the  flesh,  shall 
we  complain  that  we  cannot  ?  Shall  we  not 
rather  rejoice  at  it  ?  Shall  it  not  be  a  joy  to 
us  to  feel,  around  and  through  the  familiar 
things  which  we  seem  perfectly  to  understand, 
the  wealth  and  depth  of  Divinity,  outgoing  all 
our  comprehension  ?  V.  256,  257. 

For  greatness  which  is  infinite  makes  room 

For  all  things  in  its  lap  to  lie; 
We  should  be  crushed  by  a  magnificence 

Short  of  infinity. 

Faber. 


NOVEMBER    ii.  315 


And  with  twain  did  he  fly. — Is.  vi.  2. 

THERE  are  two  extremes  of  error.  In  the 
one,  action  is  disparaged.  The  result  is 
that  character  itself  fades  away  out  of  the 
inactive  life.  In  the  other,  action  is  made 
ever3'thing.  The  glory  of  mere  work  is  sung 
in  every  sort  of  tune.  .  .  .  The  result  is  that 
work  loses  its  dignity,  and  the  industrious  man 
becomes  a  clattering  machine.  Is  it  not  just 
here  that  the  vision  of  the  wings  comes  in  ? 
Activity  in  obedience  to  God.  Work  done  for 
Him  and  His  eternal  purposes.  Duty  conscious 
of  Him  and  forgetful  of  the  doer's  self,  and  so 
enthusiastic,  spontaneous, — there  is  the  field 
where  character  is  grown,  there  is  at  once 
the  cultivation  of  the  worker's  soul  and  the 
building  of  some  corner  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God. 

Oh,  my  young  friends,  listen  to  the  great 
modern  Gospel  of  Work  which  comes  to  you 
on  every  breeze,  but  do  not  let  it  be  to  you 
the  shallow,  superficial  story  that  it  is  to  many 
modern  ears.  Work  is  everything  or  work  is 
nothing  according  to  the  lord  we  work  for. 
Work  for  God.  .  .  .  Then  you  are  standing 
with  your  flying  wings  which  will  assuredly 
bear  you  into  fuller  light  as  they  carry  some 
work  of  God  towards  its  fulfilment. 

V.  267. 


As  the  sefvatits  of  Christ.,  doing  the  will  of  God 
from  the  heart. — Ephes.  vi.  6. 


3i6  NOVEMBER    12. 

I  ask  not  that  for  me  the  plan 
Of  good  or  ill  be  set  aside, 

But  that  the  common  lot  of  man 
Be  nobly  borne  and  glorified. 

Phebe  Gary. 

IS  it  not  true  that  any  man  makes  his  trade 
or  occupation  ready  to  be  filled  with  the 
high  motive  of  the  love  of  God  when  he  trains 
himself  to  look  at  it  in  its  ideal,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  is  thoroughly  conscientious  in  its 
duties  ?  The  shoemaker  who,  having  opened 
his  heart  to  God's  love,  comes  soonest  and 
fullest  to  find  the  work  of  his  lapstone  and 
his  bench  touched  and  inspired  by  that  mo- 
tive, will  be  the  shoemaker  who  most  con- 
ceives of  his  daily  work  as  one  connected  with 
human  comfort  and  strength,  and  who,  at  the 
same  time,  is  most  conscientiously  faithful  to 
its  details.  These  things  a  man  can  do:  he 
can  resolutely  abandon  the  sins  which  cannot 
be  spiritualized;  he  can  open  all  the  channels 
of  his  life  to  spirituality  by  the  study  of  the 
ideal,  and  by  faithful  work  in  every  part  of 
his  living.  One  is  the  turning  out  of  stran- 
gers; the  other  is  the  preparing  of  the  chambers 
for  the  entering  guest.  The  one  is  negative, 
the  other  positive.  When  both  are  done,  then 
the  man  who  has  learned  in  one  little  spot — 
the  conversion  spot  of  his  nature — that  God 
loves  him,  and  who  has  there  begun  to  love 
God,  may  look  to  see  that  new  motive  run  into 
all  these  newly  opened  chambers  of  his  life, 
making  the  half-ready  places  completely  ready 
by  its  touch.  X.  23. 


NOVEMBER    13.  317 

WHAT  is  it  that  perpetuates  the  blighting 
influence  of  fashion  ?  What  are  the 
channels  through  which  are  spread  abroad  the 
false  standard  of  wealth,  the  base  idea  of 
manliness  which  poisons  countless  hearts  ? 
Are  they  not  the  same  God-created  channels 
through  which  the  holiest  influences  were 
meant  to  flow? — "Simon,  called  Peter,  and 
Andrew  his  brother;  James  the  son  of  Zebe- 
dee,  and  John  his  brother  "  ?  Many  and  many 
a  time  their  brotherhood  is  the  power  of  a 
common  curse,  instead  of  a  common  bless- 
ing. .  .  .  What  shall  we  do  then  ?  .  .  .  It  is 
a  very  wide  law  and  a  very  beautiful  one,  that 
the  best  way  to  make  a  thing  fit  for  the  use  for 
which  it  was  first  made  is  to  put  it  to  that  use. 
The  best  way  to  make  the  dusty  trumpet  clear 
is  to  blow  music  through  it.  The  best  way  to 
make  the  sluggish  mind  capable  of  thinking  is 
to  think  with  it.  And  so  the  best  way  to  make 
the  natural  relationships  capable  of  carrying 
religious  influence  is  to  give  them  religious 
influences  to  carry,  so  strong  and  ardent 
that  they  shall  force  and  burn  their  own  way 
through  whatever  artificial  obstructions  may 
have  stopped  up  the  channel  through  which 
they  were  meant  to  go. 

V.  86,  89. 

Pour  Thy  Holy  vSpirit  in! 

Sweep  away  the  bars  of  sin; 

For  the  grace  that  comes  from  Thee 

Make  us  channels  pure  and  free 

Unto  those  that  nearest  be! 

John  Worden. 


3i8  NOVEMBER    14. 

THE  Holy  Ghost  is  the  constructive  princi- 
ple and  power  in  human  life.  By  Him 
every  society  of  good  men  is  bound  together. 
By  Him  the  Christian  Church  rises  into  the 
sky  of  God's  grace  like  a  majestic  tree  full  of 
all  precious  fruit.  By  Him  the  family  wins 
new  sacredness,  and  every  friendship  of  men 
who  are  trying  to  serve  God  is  bound  into  in- 
dissoluble union  with  an  unseen  but  strong 
compulsion.  If  you  are  afraid  of  yourself  as 
you  find  how  you  are  drawing  away  from  your 
fellow-men  and  growing  into  a  more  and  more 
selfish  life,  you  must  come  to  God;  you  must 
enter  into  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
If  you  have  a  quarrel  which  you  hate  and 
know  is  miserable,  but  which  holds  you  fast, 
your  only  freedom  from  it  is  in  the  commun- 
ion of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Come  there  and 
your  quarrel  will  break  and  scatter  as  the  ice 
melts  when  you  bring  it  into  the  sun.  ...  It 
is  the  communion  of  a  common  forgiveness 
and  a  common  inspiration. 

VII.  316. 


If  thou  be  dead,  forgive  and  thou  shalt  live; 

If    thou   hast  sinned,    forgive    and    be   for- 
given ; 
God  waiteth  to  be  gracious,  and  forgive, 

And  open  heaven. 

Set  not  thy  will  to  die  and  not  to  live; 
Set  not  thy  face  as  flint  refusing  heaven; 
Thou  fool,  set  not  thy  heart  on  hell:   forgive 
And  be  forgiven. 

Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


NOVEMBER    15.  319 


The  Lord  make  you  to  increase  and  abound  in 
love,  one  toward  another. — i  Thess.  iii.  12. 

WHAT  is  there  that  can  keep  the  purity  and 
loftiness  of  domestic  life  ?  What  is  there 
that  can  preserve  the  color  and  glory  of  the 
family  like  the  perpetual  consciousness,  run- 
ning through  all  the  open  channels  of  its  life, 
that  they  are  being  used  to  convey  the  truth 
and  the  power  of  God  ? 

IV.  83. 

What  does  it  mean  when  religion  enters 
into  a  family,  when  over  all  the  home  life  is 
stretched  out  the  hand  of  God,  and  all  a 
household  is  converted  ?  I  do  not  know  how 
to  tell  the  story  of  what  happens  then — of  the 
deep,  sweet,  solemn  change  that  comes  overall 
the  family  experience — except  by  just  this 
phrase:  that  the  communion  of  natural  affec- 
tion has  passed  into  the  communion  of  the 
Holy  Ghost.  All  these  loves  which  were  there 
before  move  on  still,  but  they  are  all  sur- 
rounded by  and  taken  up  into  one  great  com- 
prehending love;  and  he  who  enters  in  at  the 
door  of  that  converted  house  hears  them  all  in 
deepened,  richened  music,  the  same  strains 
still,  only  full  of  the  power  of  the  new  atmos- 
phere in  which  they  are  played. 

VII.  312. 

Sweetest  things  in  Thee  are  sweeter. 
Holiest  things  in  Thee  completer; 
Therefore,  Lord,  our  home-life  enter, 
Pe  its  light,  its  joy,  its  centre! 

Louise  Mathilde. 


320  NOVEMBER    i6. 


/  am  not  come  to  destroy  but  to  fulfil. 

Matt.  v.  17. 

INFLUENCES  come  from  man  to  man  as 
the  dew  and  sunshine  come  from  the  boun- 
teous heavens  to  the  ready  ground.  .  .  .  Your 
child,  your  scholar,  your  servant — you  may 
fulfil  him  or  you  may  destroy  him.  You  de- 
stroy him  if  you  fasten  on  everything  that  is 
bad  and  crude  and  ridiculous  about  him,  and 
pour  out  upon  it  rebuke  and  contempt.  You 
destroy  him  if  you  make  him  feel  himself 
weak  and  insignificant,  and  drive  him  to  de- 
spair. You  destroy  him  if  you  make  his  great 
feeling  about  his  own  life  to  be  shame.  On 
the  other  hand  you  fulfil  him,  you  fill  him  out 
to  his  full,  to  his  fullest,  if  you  catch  every- 
thing that  is  good  about  him  and  water  it  with 
judicious  encouragement  and  praise.  You 
fulfil  him  if  you  recognize  every  feeblest  and 
clumsiest  effort  to  do  right,  if  you  inspire  him 
with  hope,  if  you  make  him  seem  to  himself 
worth  cultivating  and  watching  and  developing. 
Therefore,  with  all  the  strength  which  God 
has  given  us,  let  us  be  fulfillers.  Let  us  .  .  . 
with  sympathy  and  intelligence,  patience  and 
hope,  bring  up  the  lagging  side  in  all  the  vital- 
ity around  us,  and  assert  for  man  the  worth, 
the  meaning  and  the  possibility  of  this  his 
human  life.  IV.  213. 

O  Sun  of  our  souls  first    arisen, 

Give  us  light  for  the  spirits  that  grope; 

Make  us  loving  and  steadfast  and  loyal 
To  bear  up  humanity's  hope! 

Lucy  Larcom. 


NOVEMBER    17.  321 

AS  the  sun  that  lightens  us  makes  all  the  ob- 
jects round  us  the  reflectors  and  distribu- 
ters of  his  radiance,  and  so  brings  his  light  to 
us  clothed  with  the  clearness  that  belongs  to 
them,  so  to  the  Christian  the  Spirit  of  his 
Saviour  seems  to  have  subsidized  everything 
to  make  some  new  and  more  perfect  revela- 
tion of  Him.  The  home  relations  and  the 
things  in  nature,  our  books,  our  friends,  our 
thoughts,  have  all  been  made  interpreters 
of  Christ.  Oh,  there  are  times  when,  as  one 
sits  in  meditation  or  moves  quietly  about  in 
work  for  Jesus — when  all  this  seems  so  rich 
and  plain,  A  beautiful,  serene  simplicity 
seems  to  come  forth  out  of  this  complicated 
snarl.  We  catch  the  music  of  one  great  per- 
vading purpose  in  all  this  tumult  and  clatter. 
It  is  all  redemption  working  out  its  plans. 
God  made  that  hillside  so  perfect  in  order 
that  He  might  show  me  His  fatherly  love. 
Christ  gave  me  this  task  to  do  that  I  might 
understand  His  self-sacrifice  for  me.  The 
Spirit  brought  me  into  my  friend's  friendshii) 
that  it  might  so  interpret  to  me  the  friendship 
of  my  God.  At  such  times  all  seems  plain. 
The  world  is  for  the  sons  of  God. 

VII.  105. 


O  Centre  of  all  forms!     O  concord's  home! 
O  world  alive  in  one  condensed  world! 
O  Face  of  Him  in  whose  heart  lay  concealed 
The  fountain-thought  of  all  this  kingdom  of 
heaven ! 

George  Macdonald. 


322  NOVEMBER    i8. 

WE  can  well  believe  while  the  rose  is  but  a 
bud,  shut  in  between  hard,  glossy  green 
leaves,  gathering  only  the  first  dream  of  color 
into  its  pale  petals,  that  its  own  color  should 
seem  to  it  the  purpose  of  its  life,  just  to  be 
the  perfect  rose  for  the  pure  beauty  of  its  per- 
fectness.  But  when  the  bud  bursts  and  the 
rose  is  born — what  then?  A  world  is  waiting 
for  its  fragrance  and  its  loveliness.  To  serve 
that  world,  to  send  the  colorless  light  inter- 
preted through  its  soft  hues,  and  the  odorless 
atmosphere  translated  by  its  fragrance,  to  be 
all  that  it  may  be  for  the  sake  of  all  that  it 
may  do — this  is  the  larger  purpose  of  its  being, 
and,  learning  this,  it  ripens  to  the  perfect 
flower.  So  may  the  scholar  dream  of  pure 
self-culture  for  its  own  sake.  It  is  a  noble 
dream.  .  .  .  But  if  he  grows  he  must  outgrow 
it.  He  must  grow  in  the  direction  of  human- 
ity. All  the  vast  needs  of  life  lay  hold  on 
him.  .  .  .  All  that  he  knows  and  loves  must 
go  out  with  him  into  all  his  life,  and  his  schol- 
arship must  be  part  of  the  father  who  sits  in 
the  family,  of  the  citizen  who  votes  at  the 
polls, — if  need  be,  of  the  soldier  who  fights  in 
the  ranks.   .   .   . 

X.  272. 


Yea,    plant  the  tree  that   bears  best  apples, 

plant. 
And  water  it  with  wine,  nor  watch  askance 
Whether  thy  sons  or  strangers  eat  the  fruit: 
Enough  that  mankind  eat  and  are  refreshed. 

Emerson. 


NOVEMBER    19.  323 


I  CANNOT  conceive  of  God  standing  and 
deliberately  withholding  from  His  world, 
or  from  any  least  and  humblest  of  His  ser- 
vants, till  to-morrow  any  blessing  which  it  is 
possible  for  Him  to  give  to-day.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  I  cannot  conceive  of  God's  giving 
to-day  any  blessing  which  to-day  His  world  or 
His  servant  is  unready  to  receive.  Why  is  it 
that  ages  have  lived  on  without  the  blessings 
of  popular  liberty  and  free  government  and 
well-guarded  rights  ?  Is  it  that  God  has  said, 
"  The  world  shall  not  have  them  until  my  fa- 
vorite century  and  race  appear"  ?  Is  it  not 
rather  that  God  has  said,  "  The  world  cannot 
have  them  until  it  has  won  by  hard  experience 
the  heart  and  hand  to  which  these  blessings 
can  be  given,  in  which  they  can  be  held"  ? 
Why  is  it  that  God  did  not  give  you  long  ago 
the  peace,  the  moral  strength,  which  He  will 
certainly  give  you  some  day  if  you  persevere  ? 
Has  He  been  keeping  them  from  you  wan- 
tonly and  wilfully  ?  Has  He  not  rather  been, 
nay,  is  He  not,  standing  over  you,  eager  to 
give  them  at  the  first  moment  when  the  gift  is 


possible  ? 


XII.  28. 


No  more  in  heaven  than  earth  will  he  find 
God, 

Who  does  not  know  His  loving  mercy  swift 
But  waits  the  moment  consummate  and  ripe, 

Each  burden  from  each  weary  heart  to  lift. 

Helen  Hunt  Jackson. 


324  NOVEMBER    20. 

And  shall  I  behold  Thee  face  to  face, 
O  God,  and  in  Thy  light  retrace 
How  in  all  I  loved  here,  still  wast  Thou  ? 

Browning. 

I  LOVE  to  think  of  this,  that  where  men  to- 
day are  most  unconscious  of  His  pres- 
ence, Christ  is  laying  foundations  for  His 
future  work.  Here  is  a  perfectly  worldly  man 
who  cares  nothing  for  Christ  or  Christianity, 
but  yet  Christ's  touches  are  on  him.  He  is 
surrounded  with  blessings;  he  is  pressed  upon 
with  sorrows;  he  is  led  through  apparently 
meaningless  experiences;  and  all  that  some 
day,  when  he  is  really  moved  to  cry  out  for  a 
Son  of  God,  Christ  may  be  able  to  come  to 
him,  not  new  and  strange,  but  with  the  strong 
claim  of  years  of  care  and  thought  and  un- 
thanked  mercy.  It  makes  the  world  very 
solemn  to  think  how  much  of  this  work  Christ 
must  be  doing  everywhere.  It  makes  our  own 
lives  very  sacred  to  think  how  much  of  it  He 
may  be  doing  in  us. 

V.  213. 


Our  want  and  weakness,  shame  and  sin, 

His  pitying  kindness  prove. 
And  all  our  lives  are  folded  in 

The  mystery  of  His  love. 

His  sun  is  shining  pure  and  vast 

O'er  all  our  nights  of  dread; 
Our  darkness  by  His  light  at  last 

Shall  be  interpreted. 

Alice  Gary. 


NOVEMBER    21.  325 

And  He  took  tJie  seven  fishes  and  the  loaves,  and 
gave  thanks,  and  brake  them,  .  .  .  and  they  did  all 
eat  and  were  filled. — Matt.  xv.  36,  37. 


ALL  the  history  of  the  progress  of  men's 
thought  bears  witness  that  when  God 
wants  to  give  men  knowledge  which  they  have 
not  had  before,  He  always  opens  it  to  them 
out  of  something  which  they  have  already 
known.  Paul  stands  upon  Mars'  Hill  at  Ath- 
ens, and  wants  to  show  those  people  Christ. 
How  does  he  begin  ?  He  takes  what  he  finds 
there.  He  points  to  their  altar  to  the  un- 
known god,  and  says,  "  Him  whom  ye  igno- 
rantly  worship  I  declare  to  you."  He  opens 
the  books  of  their  own  writers  and  finds  there 
his  text,  *'  As  certain  of  your  own  poets  have 
said."  Out  of  their  bit  of  truth  he  opens  the 
rich  completeness  of  the  truth  he  has  to  tell. 
Is  it  not  just  exactly  the  miracle  of  Christ? 
.  .  .  Continuity  and  economy;  these  are  the 
laws  of  Him  who  is  leading  us,  the  Captain 
of  our  salvation.  He  always  binds  the  future 
to  the  past,  and  He  wastes  nothing. 

II.  134,  143. 


Not  by  strange,  sudden  change  and  spell, 

Baffling  and  darkening  Nature's  face; 
Thou  takest  the  things  we  know  so  well, 
And  buildest  on  them  Thy  miracle, — 
The  heavenly  on  the  commonplace. 

Susan  Cooliuge. 


326  NOVEMBER    22. 


And  Jesus  said:  Make  the  men  sit  down. 

John  vi.  10. 

QUIET  has  come  in  place  of  the  noise;  re- 
pose instead  of  action.  It  [the  crowd] 
has  become  receptive.  It  is  waiting  to  be 
fed.  .  .  .  Some  day  the  headlong  current  of 
your  life  was  stopped.  The  river  ceased  to 
flow.  The  waves  stood  still,  and  then  the  ocean 
which  the  flowing  of  the  river  had  kept  out 
poured  up  and  in,  and  there  were  sacreder 
emotions  in  the  old  channels,  and  deeper 
hopes  and  fears  were  beating  upon  the  well- 
worn  banks.  The  day  when  your  great  be- 
reavement came,  .  .  .  the  day  when  joy,  with 
that  subtle  possibility  of  deep  pain  which  is 
always  in  her  eyes,  came  to  your  door  and 
knocked,  .  .  .  the  day  when,  being  weak  and 
ill,  you  did  not  go  to  your  business,  .  .  .  those 
were  the  days  when  God  was  feeding  you.  .  .  . 
No  life  is  complete  which  does  not  sometimes 
sit  trustfully  waiting  to  be  fed  of  God. 

IV.  227,  232,  234. 

For  not  by  bread  alone 

Can  we,  Thy  children,  live: 
Some  heavenly  food  unknown 

Thou  unto  us  must  give. 

Thy  life,  O  God!  Thy  Word, 
Outspoken  through  Thy  Son 

In  Him  our  prayer  is  heard, 
Our  heart's  desire  is  won. 

The  hidden  manna  this. 

Whereof  who  eateth,  he 
Grows  up  in  perfectness 

Of  Christlike  symmetry.     Lucy  Larcom. 


NOVEMBER   23.  327 

THERE  is  danger  for  many  men,  if  not  for 
all,  in  the  perpetual  outgo  of  energy 
which  so  much  of  our  life  involves.  ..."  All 
is  going  out,  nothing  is  coming  in;"  is  not 
that  the  dismay  and  the  despair  which  settles 
down  upon  many  an  experience  as  it  attains  to 
middle  life  ?  Existence  comes  to  feel  to  many 
of  us  like  a  great  river,  which  is  always  flow- 
ing with  unbroken  force  downward  to  the  sea. 
It  never  stops.  It  is  always  pushing  its  life 
outward.  It  gives  the  sea  no  chance  to  flow 
up  into  it.  So  is  the  ever  energetic  life  of  one 
whose  sole  idea  is  to  exert  influence,  to  make 
himself  felt  in  some  result.  How  often  the 
river  must  long  to  pause.  How  often  it  must 
become  aware  that  its  impetuous  rush  is  losing 
for  it  the  richness  of  the  great  deep  salt  sea. 
How  often  the  busy  life  of  man  becomes  aware 
that  somewhere  round  it  there  is  richness 
which  it  does  not  get  because  it  opens  outward 
only,  and  not  inward.  .  .  .  There  is  need  of 
rest  and  receptivity.  IV.  229,  230,  231. 

Many  are  coming  and  going  with  busy  and 
restless  feet, 

And  the  soul  is  hungering  now,  with  "  no  lei- 
sure so  much  as  to  eat,"  .   .   . 

Oh,  for  a  Sabbath  of  life,  a  time  for  renewing 
of  youth, 

For  a  full-orbed  leisure  to  shine  on  the  foun- 
tains of  holy  truth. 

And  to  fill  my  chalice  anew  with  its  waters 
fresh  and  sweet, 

While  resting  in  silent  love  at  the  Master's 
glorious  feet.  Frances  R.  Havergal. 


328  NOVEMBER    24. 

T    ABOR    and     patience,     activity    and     the 

*— '     growth  which  comes  by  passive  suffering, 

ought  always  to  make  one  single  total  life.  .  .  . 

Make  your    most    restful    contemplation    and 

your  most   receptive   listening  at   the   lips  of 

God,  not  to  be  mere  spiritual  luxuries,  but  to 

be  forms  and  modes  of  action.      Make  them 

acts.      Let  them   call   your  powers  into  play. 

Let  them  be  not  listless,  but  full  of  vigor.     Let 

them  anticipate  work  for  God  and  service  of 

His  children   so    earnestly  and    eagerly,    that 

they  themselves  shall  be  work  and  service. 

He  who    learns  these  lessons   lives  a  life  as 

deep  as  the  ocean  and  as  powerful.      There  is 

no   tedium   or   fretfulness    for   him.      His   life 

catches  the  quality  of  the  life  of  God.       He 

works  while  it  is  called  to-day,  and  yet  he  has 

already  reached  the  rest  which  remaineth  for 

God's  people.     Such  lives  may  God  help  us  to 

live. 

IV.  241,  243. 

Toil  is  sweet,  for  Thou  hast  toiled; 

Rest  is  sweet,  for  Thou  didst  rest; 
Be  our  works  from  sin  assoiled! 

Be  our  rest  upon  Thy  breast! 

Be  our  work  for  Thee  our  rest! 

Be  our  strife  for  Thee  our  peace! 
Till  our  sun  sink  in  the  west. 

And  we  reap  Thy  joy's  increase. 

J.  L.  M.  W. 


NOVEMBER    25.  329 


He  said  tmto  me :  Son  of  man,  stand  upon  thy 
feet. — EzEK.  ii.  i. 

Giving  thanks  always  for  all  thijigs  unto  God 
and  the  Father,  in  the  name  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
C/zm/.— Ephes.  v.  20. 

SHALL  we,  can  we,  thank  God  for  His  mer- 
cies, standing  upon  our  feet  and  rejoic- 
ing that  we  are  men,  thoroughly  grateful  for 
the  real  joy  of  life  ?  Back  of  all  the  special 
causes  for  thanksgiving  which  our  hearts  rec- 
ognize, is  there  a  thankfulness  for  that  on 
which  they  all  rest  and  in  which  they  are  sewn 
like  jewels  in  a  cloth  of  gold;  for  the  mere 
fact  of  human  life,  for  the  mere  privilege  and 
honor  of  being  men  and  women  ?  .    .    . 

If  you  have  been  dwelling  solely  on  the  evil 
that  is  in  man,  or  on  the  special  evil  which  you 
think  is  in  your  church,  your  nation,  or  your 
age  .  .  .  stand  up!  Stand  up  upon  your  feet! 
Believe  in  man!  Soberly  and  with  clear  eyes 
believe  in  your  own  time  and  place.  There  is 
not,  there  never  has  been,  a  better  time  or  a 
better  place  to  live  in.  Only  with  this  belief 
can  you  believe  in  hope. 

II.  149,  161,  162. 


How  good  is  man's  life,  the  mere  living!  how 
fit  to  employ 

All  the  heart  and  the  soul  and  the  senses  for- 
ever in  joy! 

Browning. 


330  NOVEMBER    26. 


Thou  hast  kept  the  good  luine  imtil  now. 

John  ii.  10. 

MAN  says,  "  I  choose  to  let  the  best  come 
first;  and  then,  if  need  be,  things  must 
degenerate,  I  would  make  sure  of  what  good 
there  is.  I  am  so  sure  of  nothing,  that  anything 
I  can  catch  shall  be  caught  instantly."  But 
God  says,  "No!  The  world  grows  better  and 
better.  The  best  must  be  kept  waiting  till  its 
time  shall  have  arrived.  The  best  cannot 
come  until  its  time  is  ready.  The  best  must 
not  come  first  but  last."  It  is  a  difference 
which  one  immediately  feels  when  he  comes 
into  the  region  of  the  religion  of  Christ.  The 
essence  of  Christianity  is  to  believe  that  the 
world  is  growing  better,  that  the  life  of  man 
is  growing  better,  under  the  discipline  of 
Christ.  It  is  calm  and  hopeful  with  great  as- 
surances. It  sets  the  old  man,  at  the  end  of 
his  career,  in  the  midst  of  fulfilled  promises 
and  finished  educations,  splendidly  saying,  as 
*he  looks  back  over  his  life:  "  It  has  all  been 
good,  but  this  is  the  best  of  all.  Thou,  O 
Christ,  O  Master,  hast  kept  the  best  wine  until 
now!  "  XII.  7. 

As  Thou  hast  made  the  world  without. 
Make  Thou  more  fair  the  world  within; 

Shine  through  its  lingering  clouds  of  doubt; 
Rebuke  its  haunting  shapes  of  sin; 

Fill,  brief  or  long,  my  granted  span 

Of  life  with  love  to  Thee  and  man; 

Strike  when  Thou  wilt  the  hour  of  rest, 

But  let  my  last  days  be  my  best! 

Whittier. 


NOVEMBER    27.  331 


When  I  would  do  good,  evil  is  present  with  me. 

Rom.  vii.  21. 

PAUL'S  story  has  been  your  story.  You 
never  sprang  most  bravely  from  the  low 
order  of  your  Hving,  that  a  hand  did  not 
seem  to  catch  you  and  draw  you  back.  You 
never  felt  a  new  power  start  up  within  you  that 
a  new  weakness  did  not  start  up  by  its  side. 
.  .  .  Awful  has  grown  this  certainty  that  no 
good  impulse  ever  could  go  straight  and  unin- 
terrupted to  its  victorious  result,  and  yet  is  it 
not  wonderful  how  you  have  kept  the  assur- 
ance that  good  and  not  evil  is  the  master- 
power  of  your  life  ?  The  resolution  has  been 
broken.  It  has  limped  and  halted.  It  has 
stood  for  months,  and  made  no  progress,  but 
it  has  never  died. 

VI.  13. 

Lord,  I  have  laid  my  heart  upon  Thy  altar, 

But  cannot  get  the  wood  to  burn;  • 

It  hardly  flares  ere  it  begins  to  falter. 

And  to  the  dark  return. 
Old  sap,  or  night-fallen  dew,  has  damped  the 
fuel; 

In  vain  my  breath  would  flame  provoke; 
Yet  see — at  every  poor  attempt's  renewal 

To  Thee  ascends  the  smoke! 
'Tis    all    I    have — smoke,    failure,    foiled    en- 
deavor. 

Coldness  and  doubt,  and  palsied  lack: 
Such  as  I  have  I  send  Thee;  perfect  CHvor, 

Send  Thou  Thy  lightning  back! 

George  Macdonald. 


332  NOVEMBER   28. 


When  the  fulness  of  time  had  co?}ie,  God  sent 
forth  His  Son.—QxKL.  iv.  4. 

IT  was  the  emptiest  age  that  the  whole  moral 
and  spiritual  history  of  man  had  seen; 
and  just  that  emptiness  it  was  which  made  it 
the  fulness  of  time  for  Christ.  ...  It  was 
out  of  the  deadness  of  millions  and  millions 
of  souls  that  the  cry  for  life  came,— uncon- 
scious, unmeant,  but  no  less  recognized  by 
Him  who  watches  and  answers  not  only  the 
desires  but  the  needs  of  men. 

And  so  with  all  of  us  is  it  not  the  fulness  of 
time  indeed  ?  Is  there  one  of  us  who  can  say, 
"It  is  not  my  time  yet?"  Now  while  the 
morning  is  at  hand,  the  night  far  spent;  now 
while  we  have,  it  may  be,  but  a  little  while 
left  us  to  come  to  Christ  or  to  come  closer  to 
Christ,  to  be  a  Christian  or  to  be  a  better 
Christian;  now  while  the  Bridegroom's  feet 
are  close  upon  us,  are  sounding  already  in  the 
^  distance,  oh,  let  our  loins  be  girded  about, 
*  and  our  lights  burning,  and  we  ourselves  like 
unto  men  that  wait  for  their  Lord. 

VII.  67,  71. 

Said  Mark  to  Martin,  "Wherefore  spend 
Such  constant  care  thy  vines  to  tend  ? 
It  may  be  months,  it  may  be  years,  ^^ 
Before  the  vineyard's  lord  appears." 

Said  Martin,  "  Though  it  may  be  long 
Before  I  hear  his  harvest-song. 
If  of  that  hour  can  no  man  say. 
It  may  be  that  he  comes  to-day." 

Julia  Wood. 


NOVEMBER    29.  333 

ONLY  when  all  was  ready,  only  in  the  ful- 
ness of  time,  did  Jesus  come  .  .  .  and 
the  men  of  whom  He  was  the  representative 
and  the  chief — have  they  their  advents  too  ? 
It  is  easy  to  believe  it  about  the  greatest  of 
them.  .  .  .  But  it  is  hard  to  think  the  same 
of  common  people  such  as  you  and  I.  [Yet] 
hard  as  it  is,  great  as  is  the  strain  which  it 
puts  on  all  our  low  habits  of  thinking  about 
ourselves,  the  Bible  is  a  strong  and  glorious 
call  to  men  to  gird  up  the  loins  of  their  minds 
and  believe  that  God  had  a  place  for  them  and 
put  them  in  their  own  place.  .  .  .  The  begin- 
ning of  a  life  goes  back  before  the  man  is 
here,  a  visible  fact  upon  the  earth.  It  lays 
hold  of  the  thought  of  God,  which  runs  back 
to  eternity.  God  knew  your  nature.  He 
had  a  plan  and  pattern  of  your  being  in  His 
mind.  As  David  says.  His  eyes  did  see  your 
substance,  yet  being  imperfect,  and  in  His 
book  were  all  your  members  written.  Know- 
ing you.  He  made  ready  a  place  for  you;  He 
shaped  a  cradle  for  you  in  the  ages,  and  when 
it  was  all  done  He  laid  your  new  life  in  it — the 
advent  before  the  nativity.  VII.  4,  5. 

So  take  and  use  Thy  work. 
Amend  what  flaws  may  lurk. 
What  strains  o'  the  stuff,  what  warpings  past 
Thy  aim! 

My  times  be  in  Thy  hand, 
Perfect  the  cup  as  planned! 
Let   age   approve   of  youth,    and   death  com- 
plete the  same! 

Browning. 


334  NOVEMBER   30. 

In  my  Father's  house  are  7nany  mansioiis.     I  go 
to  prepare  a  place  for  you. — John  xiv.  2. 

AH!  there  is  no  friendship  worthy  of  the 
sacred  name  where  each  of  the  two 
friends  is  not  always  thus  making  ready  places 
for  the  other  in  higher  and  higher  mansions  of 
the  Father's  house,  where  each  is  not  always 
opening  to  the  other  some  higher  life.  Do 
not  dare  to  think  that  friendship  is  a  mere 
pleasant  amusement.  Do  not  dare  to  take  out 
of  it  the  moral  responsibility  that  makes  its 
depth  and  sacredness.  .  .  .  Husband  and 
wife  live  together  in  perfect  domestic  sympa- 
thy. Not  a  thought  of  either  that  the  other 
does  not  share.  But  when  one  of  them  enters 
into  Christ  and  knows  His  peace  and  joy,  it 
seems  as  if  for  the  first  time  they  had  sepa- 
rated. But  the  soul  that  has  found  the  Saviour 
comes  back  with  its  love,  and  tells  the  story  of 
the  Saviour  it  has  found,  and,  Andrew-like, 
brings  the  other  soul  to  the  Christ  in  whose 
love  it  has  found  a  place.  Everywhere  this 
ministry  of  life  to  life  is  finding  its  illustra- 
tions. 

VI.  175,  176. 

Come  home  with  me,  beloved, — 

Home  to  God's  waiting  heart! 
In  gladness  met  together 

From  paths  too  long  apart; 
Strangers  no  more,  but  brethren, 

One  life  with  Him  to  live; 
Eternally  receiving. 

Eternally  to  give! 

Lucy  Larcom. 


DECEMBER    i.  335 


To  every  man  according  to  his  ability. 

Matt.  xxv.  15. 

IT  is  a  young  man's  right — almost  his  duty 
— to  hope,  ahnost  to  believe,  that  he  has 
singular  capacity,  and  is  not  merely  another 
repetition  of  the  constantly  repeated  average 
of  men.  Before  he  unfolds  the  bundle  which 
his  Lord  has  given  him,  he  may  well  see  in 
his  imagination  the  ten  bright  talents  shining 
through  its  folds.  To  see  those  dreams  and 
visions  gradually  fade  away;  little  by  little 
to  discover  that  one  has  no  such  exceptional 
capacity;  to  try  one  and  another  of  the  adven- 
turous ways  that  lead  to  the  high  heights  and 
the  great  prizes,  and  find  the  feet  unequal  to 
them;  to  come  back  at  last  to  the  great  trod- 
den highway,  and  plod  on  among  the  undis- 
tinguished millions — that  is  often  very  hard. 
.  .  .  Yet  the  man  of  two  talents  has  a  great 
chance  in  the  world.  Alas  for  the  world  if  he 
had  not!  For  it  is  of  him  that  the  world  is 
mainly  composed.  .  .  .  And  Christ  must  come 
with  special  welcome  and  appreciation  and  de- 
light to  any  man  who  feels  his  insignificance, 
and  is  in  danger  of  losing  himself  in  the  vague 
mass  of  his  fellows. 

IV.  198,  204. 

Be  sure  no  earnest  work 
Of  any  honest  creature, — howbeit  weak, 
Imperfect,  ill-adapted, — fails  so  much, 
It  is  not  gathered  as  a  grain  of  sand 
To  enlarge  the  sum  of  human  action  used 
For  carrying  out  God's  end. 

Elizabeth  Barreti-  Browning. 


33^  DECEMBER    2. 


MEN  get  tired,  one  after  another,  of  the  fan- 
tastic and  one-sided  types  of  character 
which  the  world  admires,  and  which  seem  to  us 
very  attractive  at  first.  Expectant  without 
impatience;  patient  without  stagnation;  wait- 
ing, but  always  ready  to  advance;  loving  to 
advance,  but  always  ready  to  wait;  full  of 
confidence,  but  never  proud;  full  of  certainty, 
but  never  arrogant;  serene,  but  enthusiastic; 
rich  as  a  great  land  is  rich  in  the  peace  that 
comes  to  it  from  the  government  of  a  great, 
wise,  trusty  governor, — this  is  the  life  whose 
whole  power  is  summed  up  in  one  word — 
Faith.  "  Here  is  the  patience  and  faith  of 
the  saints."  This  is  the  life  to  which  men 
come  who,  through  long  years,  "  follow  the 
Lamb  whithersoever  He  goeth." 

II.  58. 


The  bravely  dumb  that  did  their  deed. 

And  scorned  to  blot  it  with  a  name, — 
Men  of  the  plain  heroic  breed. 

That  loved  Heaven's  silence  more  than  fame: 
Such  lived  not  in  the  past  alone, 

But  thread  to-day  the  unheeding  street. 
And  stairs  to  Sin  and  Famine  known 

Sing  with  the  welcome  of  their  feet. 

Lowell. 


DECEMBER   3.  337 

With  good  will  doi?ig  sevoice^  as  to  the  Lord, 
and  fiot  to  me?i. — Ephes.  vi.  17. 

OUPPOSE — for  it  is  at  least  supposable — 
^  that  behind  every  other  motive,  shining 
througli  every  other  motive  which  made  a  man 
work,  there  had  been  this — the  love  of  Christ. 
Whoever  he  worked  for  secondarily,  he  worked 
for  Jesus  first  of  all.  Would  that  have  made 
no  difference  ?  Like  an  electric  atmosphere 
poured  around  the  shrine  in  which  a  jewel 
rests,  so  that  no  hand  can  be  thrust  through 
to  steal  the  jewel;  so  round  the  work,  full  of 
its  joy,  is  poured  the  love  of  Christ,  out  of 
which  no  man  can  snatch  it.  Suppose  that 
some  strong  opponent  keeps  him  from  doing 
what  he  wants  to  do, — there  is  still  the  assur- 
ance that  his  doing  that  is  but  a  part  of  a 
vaster  accomplishment, — the  will  of  his  great 
Master, — which  he  knows  must  come  in  its 
completeness  whether  this  special  act  of  his 
attain  success  or  not. 

III.  300. 

I  seem  to  halt,  and  yet  I  know 
The  breath  of  God  is  in  the  sails: 
Whether  by  zephyrs  or  by  gales. 

The  ships  of  God  must  onward  go. 
E'en  when  to  rest  He  singeth  them. 
He  to  the  haven  bringeth  them. 

C.  G.  Hazard. 


338  DECEMBER   4. 

As  unknown^  and  yet  well  know?i. 

2  Cor.  vi.  9. 

ARE  there  not  moments  in  your  life  when  it 
seems  to  you  as  if  you  understood  and 
knew  yourself  through  and  through  ?  You 
have  listened  to  this  clank  of  your  machinery 
so  long,  that  you  know  every  sound  that  it 
makes.  ..."  Know  myself!  "  you  say;  "  in- 
deed I  do,"  grasping  your  own  warm,  hard 
flesh.  "Am  I  not  this,  which  lives  thus? 
Why  should  I  think  myself  mysterious?" 
And  then  instantly,  "  Know  myself!  God 
forbid!  Who  am  I  that  I  should  enter  into 
the  bosom  of  His  eternal  purpose,  and  study 
there  what  has  only  there  real  and  final  being  ? 
Let  me  stand  before  my  unknown  self,  and 
wonder."  Poor  and  mangled  is  the  life  which 
has  not  thus  seemed  both  to  understand  and 
be  ignorant  about  itself.  It  must  be  either 
useless  or  visionless. 

VI.  284. 

But  O  my  soul,  as  I  thy  good 

And  evil  ways  explore, 
I  seem  to  see  the  Christ  in  thee 

His  earthly  life  live  o'er.   .   .   . 
Thou  art  that  Temple  where  the  Lord 

Out-teacheth  scribes  of  law, 
Whence  afterward  with  cords  He  makes 

Coarse  mammon  priests  withdraw; — 
Thine  inmost  court,  a  holy  place. 

The  Lord's  own  glory-home. 
Thine  outer,  sentencing  Him  oft 

To  shame  and  martyrdom. 

Denis  Wortman. 


DECEMBER   5.  339 


Whatsoever  things  mere  written  aforetime^  were 
written  .  .  .  that  7ae,  through  patience,  and  com- 
fort of  the  Scriptures,  might  have  hope. 

Rom.  XV.  4. 

Welcome,  dear  Book!  soul's  joy  and  food!  the 

feast 
Of  spirits!   heaven  extracted  lies  in  thee: 
Thou    art    life's   charter,  the   Dove's  spotless 

nest, 
Where  souls  are  hatched  unto  eternity. 

Vaughan. 

WE  circulate  the  Bible  by  the  million. 
Some  parts  of  it  we  read  as  a  religious 
duty.  But  there  are  whole  books  of  it  teem- 
ing with  interest  which  few  of  us  ever  touch. 
One  sometimes  feels  that  some  day  or  other  a 
great  increase  of  the  spiritual  power  of  the 
Bible  will  come  with  what  will  be  almost  a  re- 
discovery of  its  literary  attractiveness.  When 
people  break  through  the  strange  feeling  which 
has  gathered  around  it  that  it  is  dull  and  un- 
real, and  find  that  it  is  the  most  interesting 
book  in  all  the  world,  then  they  will  be  open 
for  its  deeper  power  to  lay  hold  upon  their 
consciences  and  hearts.  IV.  298. 

Above  all,  get  the  great  spirit  of  tfie  Bible 
.  .  .  the  idea  without  which  it  would  all  drop 
to  jMeces, — that  there  is  not  one  life  which  the 
great  Life-Giver  ever  loses  out  of  His  sight; 
not  one  which  ever  sins  so  that  He  casts  it 
away;  not  one  which  is  not  so  near  to  Him 
that  whatever  touches  it  touches  Him  with 
sorrow  or  with  joy.  I.  no. 


340  DECEMBER    6. 

THE  New  Testament  is  a  biography.  Make 
it  a  mere  book  of  dogmas,  and  its  vital- 
ity is  gone.  .  .  .  Make  it  the  history  of  Jesus 
of  Nazareth,  and  the  world  holds  it  in  its  heart 
forever.  Not  simply  His  coming  or  His 
going,  not  simply  His  birth  or  His  death,  but 
the  living — the  total  life  of  Jesus  in  the 
world's  salvation.  And  the  Book  in  which 
His  life  shines  orbed  and  distinct  is  the 
world's  treasure.  There,  as  in  all  best  bio- 
graphies, two  values  of  a  marked  and  well- 
depicted  life  appear.  It  is  of  value,  first,  be- 
cause it  is  exceptional,  and  also  because  it  is 
representative.  Every  life  is  at  once  like  and 
unlike  every  other.  Every  good  story  of  a  life, 
therefore,  sets  before  those  who  read  it  some- 
thing which  is  imitable  and  something  which 
is  incapable  of  imitation;  and  thereby  come 
two  different  sorts  of  stimulus  and  inspiration. 
It  gives  us  help  like  that  of  the  stars  which 
guide  the  ship  from  without,  and  also  like  that 
of  the  fire  which  burns  beneath  the  engines  of 
the  ship  itself. 

X.  428. 

Why  must  He  lay  His  infant  head 

In  the  manger  where  the  beasts  were  fed  ? 

So  that*the  pooi'est  here  might  cry, 

**  My  Lord  was  as  lowly  born  as  jy 

Is  there  no  way  to  Him  at  last 

But  that  where  His  bleeding  feet  have  passed  ? 

Did  He  ?tot  to  His  followers  say, 

"  /  am  the  Life,  the  Light,  the  Way  "  ? 

Phebe  Gary. 


DECEMBER    7.  341 

THERE  are  few  features  in  the  life  of  Jesus 
whicli  impress  me  more  than  the  way  in 
which  His  wort:  and  His  growth,  His  effective 
and  receptive  Hfe  went  on  together.  .  .  .  True, 
there  were  times  when  He  withdrew  Himself, 
and,  leaving  all  activity  behind,  lay  on  the 
mountain  days  and  nights  passive  before  His 
Father,  waiting  to  be  more  completely  filled 
with  Him.  But  those  were  rare,  exceptional 
occasions.  The  ordinary  dependence  upon 
God  was  perfectly  expressed  by  those  words 
to  His  disciples,  "  My  meat  is  to  do  the  will 
of  Him  that  sent  me!  "  When  He  gave  the 
sermon  on  the  mount,  when  He  calmed  the 
tempest  on  the  lake,  when  He  raised  Lazarus 
from  the  dead,  we  do  not  doubt  that  both  pro- 
cesses were  going  on,  enfolded  in  the  com- 
pleteness of  each  of  those  actions.  He  was 
saving  the  world,  and  He  was  becoming  more 
perfectly  His  Father's  Son  at  once.   .   .   . 

Rest  and  action  in  the  experience  of  the 
completest  soul  are  not  antagonistic;  they  are 
hardly  distinct  from  one  another.  Action  is 
the  most  refreshing  rest,  and  rest  is  in  some 
sense  the  most  effective  action  to  the  soul  that 
lives  on  complete  dependence  and  obedience 
to  God. 

IV.  240. 


But  if  I  face  with  courage  stout 

The  labor  and  the  din. 
Thou,  Lord,  wilt  let  my  mind  go  out. 

My  heart  with  Thee  stay    in. 

George  Macdonald. 


342  DECEMBER   8. 


Strengthened  with  all  might,  according  to  His 
glorious  power,  unto  all  patience  a?id  long-suffer- 
ing, with  joy  fulness. — Col.  i.  ii. 

/~\NE  sufferer  cries,  "  Lord,  make  me 
^^  strong;  "  another  sufferer  cries,  "  Lord, 
let  me  rest  upon  Thy  strength."  Do  you  say 
they  come  to  the  same  thing  ?  Yes,  if  the 
doing  of  the  task,  the  bearing  of  the  pain, 
is  everything.  Yes,  if  the  only  object  is  that 
the  ship  may  not  founder  and  the  back  may 
not  break;  but  if,  beyond  this,  there  is  hope 
and  purpose  that  the  man  who  does  the  task 
or  bears  the  load  shall  himself  become  God- 
like in  his  doing  and  suffering,  then  no  mere 
deposit  of  the  strength  of  God  can  do  the 
work — only  the  ever-open  union  of  his  life 
with  God's,  which  makes  the  two  lives  really 
one,  so  that  the  power  that  is  in  God  is  not 
made  the  man's  by  being  transferred  from 
God's  to  him,  but  is  his  because  it  is  God's. 

III.  126. 

God,  whom  my  roads  all  reach,  howe'er  they 

run, 
My  Father,  Friend,  Beloved,  dear  All-One, 
Thee  in  my  soul,  my  soul  in  Thee,  I  feel, 
Self  of  myself. 

Sidney  Lanier. 


DFXEMBER    9.  343 

If  this  counsel  or  this  work  be  of  men,,  it  7vill 
come  to  naught ;  but  if  it  be  of  God,  ye  ca?inot  over- 
throw it. — Acts  v.  38,  39. 

THAT  which  is  rooted  in  God  must  Hve. 
There  is  no  hope  or  peace  anywhere  in 
the  world  if  this  is  not  true.  Who  cares 
which  way  the  ficlcle  wind  is  blowing  at  this 
minute  if  there  be  no  purpose  which  stands 
behind  and  governs  it,  no  One  who  holds  the 
winds  in  His  hands  ?  But  if  there  be,  who  will 
not  labour  bravely,  trying  to  put  himself  into 
the  current  of  the  great  purpose  of  the  world; 
begging  to  be  defeated  if  he  mistakes  the 
great  purpose  and  is  helping  evil  when  he 
thinks  that  he  is  helping  good;  ready  to  wait 
and  work  through  all  delays; — sure  of  one 
thing  and  only  one,  that  in  the  end,  through 
every  hindrance  and  delay,  God  must  do 
right  ? 

III.  262. 

I  do  not  dare  to  pray 
For  winds  to  waft  me  on  my  way, 
But  leave  it  to  a  higher  Will 
To  stay  or  speed  me,  trusting  still 
That  all  is  well,  and  sure  that  He  .   .   . 
Will  land  me — every  peril  past — 
Within  the  sheltered  haven  at  last. 

Then  whatsoever  wind  doth  blow. 
My  heart  is  glad  to  have  it  so; 
And  blow  it  east,  or  blow  it  west, 
The  wind  that  blows,  that  wind  is  best. 

Caroline  A.  Mason. 


344  DECEMBER    lo. 

LIFE  grows  healthily  from  less  to  more.  It 
does  not  begin  with  its  best  and  fade 
away  towards  nothingness.  It  opens  with 
promises  which  involve  incompleteness,  and 
goes  forward  with  a  climbing  sun  toward  a 
rich  and  radiant  noon.  ...  If  I  am  travel- 
ling through  a  country  which  is  sure  to  grow 
less  and  less  rich  as  I  get  farther  on,  it  is  inev- 
itable that  I  shall  strive  at  every  step  to  gather 
all  of  its  fleeting  riches  that  I  can.  ...  I 
shall  leave  no  well  untasted  and  no  tree  un- 
plucked.  I  shall  burden  my  shoulders  with 
the  load  of  what  I  cannot  eat.  But  if  I  know 
that,  as  I  pass  on  from  field  to  field  upon  my 
journey,  each  is  to  be  richer  than  the  last,  I 
shall  be  calm  and  patient  and  serene,  seeing 
to-day  in  the  broader  light  of  to-morrow; 
asking  to-day  to  give  me  its  appropriate  gift, 
not  demanding  of  it  that  which  it  is  not  ready 
to  bestow  nor  I  to  take;  and  going  on  with 
faith,  which  is  the  deepest  and  most  precious 
result  of  every  blessing. 

XII.  17. 


I  will  not  wrong  Thee,  O  To-day, 
With  idle  longing  for  To-morrow; 

But  patient  plow  my  field  and  sow 
The  seed  of  faith  in  every  furrow. 

Enough  for  me  the  loving  light 

That  melts  the  cloud's  repellent  edges,- 
The  still  unfolding,  bud  by  bud. 

Of  God's  most  sweet  and  holy  pledges. 

Harriet  McEvven  Kimball. 


DECEMBER    ii.  345 


THE  evening  of  your  abundant  prosperity- 
arrived.  The  darkness  gathered  in 
about  the  radiant  luxurious  life  which  you 
had  lived.  No  longer  did  it  seem  as  if  the 
sun  shone  and  the  flowers  bloomed  and  the 
seasons  came  and  went  for  you.  You  said, 
"It  is  all  over.  I  have  had  my  day."  To 
some  of  you  since  you  said  that,  there  has 
come  a  great  surprise.  What  seemed  all  over 
has  proved  to  be  but  just  begun.  The  day 
which  you  thought  you  had  had,  you  can  see 
now  that  you  had  hardly  touched.  Prosperity 
has  come  to  mean  to  you  another  thing.  The 
hours  in  which  it  meant  plenty  of  money, 
plenty  of  friends,  seem  now  so  thin  and  super- 
ficial. To  work,  to  help  and  to  be  helped,  to 
learn  sympathy  by  suffering,  to  learn  faith  by 
perplexity,  to  reach  truth  through  wonder, 
behold!  this  is  what  it  is  to  prosper,  this  is 
what  it  is  to  live.  You  did  not  really  begin 
to  live  till  the  darkening  of  your  happiness 
brought  you  into  the  knowledge  of  a  happi- 
ness which  can  never  darken.  The  evening 
and  the  morning  have  been  your  first  day. 

VI.  331. 


Life's  self,  the  immortal,  immutable  smile 

Of  God  on   the   soul,    in   the   deep    heart   of 
Heaven, 

Lives  changeless,  unchanged;  and  our  morn- 
ing and  even 

Are  earth's  alternations,  not  Heaven's. 

Owen  Meredith. 


346  DECEMBER    12. 

He  came  unto  His  own.  .   .  .    To  thejji  He  gave 
power  to  beco77ie  the  sons  of  God. 

John  i.  11,  12. 

THE  man  to  whom  it  seems  incredible  that 
God  should  have  been  made  man  is  not 
so  likely  to  have  been  misled  b}^  a  peculiar 
reverence  for  God  as  by  an  unworthy  esti- 
mate of  man.  .  .  .  He  has  taken  things  as  he 
sees  them  and  lost  sight  of  their  ideals.  He 
has  seen  the  mercenariness  of  friendship,  the 
squalor  of  home,  the  animalness  of  love — 
everything  sunk  down  out  of  its  nobleness; 
and  he  has  said,  "  There  is  no  place  for  God 
here.  It  would  degrade  Him  to  become  man, 
man  being  thus."  Ah,  brethren,  if  we  could 
only  begin  at  the  other  end!  God  did  become 
man,  and  therefore  manhood  must  be  essen- 
tially capacious  of  Divinity.  He  lived  in  a 
human  home,  and  so  our  homes  must  be  capa- 
ble of  a  Divinity  they  do  not  have.  He  en- 
tered into  friendships,  and  so  friendship  must 
be  sacred.  He  worked,  and  so  work  must  be 
honorable.  He  cared  for  the  body  that  He 
lived  in,  and  so  the  body  cannot  be  so  vile  as 
men  have  called  it  and  as  we  make  it.  If  this 
could  be  the  way  the  Incarnation  came  to  us, 
then  surely  it  must  be  a  constant  inspiration 
to  us  that  it  was  "  His  own  "  to  whom  Christ 
came.  VII.  27. 

O  soul  of  mine!     I  tell  thee  true, 

If  Christ  indeed  be  thine. 
Not  more  makes  He  himself  thy  kin 

Than  makes  He  thee  divine. 

Denis  Wortman. 


DECEMBER    13.  347 

JESUS  "came  unto  His  own."  To  men  for- 
getful of  their  godlike  nature  He  came 
to  tell  them  that  they  were  the  sons  of  God; 
and  to  men  who  could  not  do  without  Him 
He  came  because  they  needed  Him.  Oh,  my 
dear  friends,  by  what  high  warrants  does  the 
Saviour  claim  us  for  His  own!  Because  we 
are  His  Father's  children,  and  because  we  are 
so  needy,  therefore  our  divine  Brother  comes. 
He  comes  to  you  and  says,  "  You  called  Me." 
And  you  look  up  out  of  your  worldliness  and 
say,  "  Oh  no!  I  did  not  call.  I  do  not  know 
You!"  But  He  says,  calml}^  "You  did, 
although  you  do  not  know  it.  That  power  of 
being  godlike  which  is  in  you,  crushed  and  un- 
satisfied— that  summoned  me;  and  that  need 
of  being  forgiven  and  renewed  which  you  will 
not  own — that  summoned  Me.  And  here  I 
am!  Now  wilt  thou  be  made  whole?  If 
thou  canst  believe,  all  things  are  possible  to 
him  that  believeth." 

VII.  30. 


I  did  not  know  that  I  had  called  Thee,  Lord: 
I   knew   not  half    my    dearth,    my   sin,   my 
grief; 
Yet  gladly  now  I  take  Thee  at  Thy  word, — 
Lord,  I  believe;  help  Thou  my  unbelief. 

John  Worden. 


348  DECEMBER    14. 

CHRIST  came  in  answer  to  a  most  urgent 
and  pressing  call  of  need.  That  is  what 
it  signifies  when  it  is  said  that  "  He  came  unto 
His  own.''  For  in  a  true  sense  everything  is 
a  man's  own  which  needs  that  man;  not  every- 
thing which  he  needs,  but  everything  which 
needs  him.  Do  you  not  know  what  that  is  ? 
Your  child  is  yours  not  merely  by  the  claim  of 
birth  and  nature,  but  by  the  tie  of  continual 
dependence.  He  is  most  yours  when  he  needs 
you  most.  .  .  .  He  came  to  those  who  needed 
Him ;  most  of  all  to  those  who  from  the  stricken 
earth  held  up  to  Him  the  deepest  of  all  needs, 
the  need  of  sin  that  craved  forgiveness;  and 
that  was  what  made  them  His.  Certainly  no 
level-eyed  intercourse  of  sinless  man  with  sin- 
less Christ  could  have  wrought  in  us  such  a 
profound  and  precious  sense  that  we  belong 
to  Him  as  this  simple  knowledge  that  we  need 
Him.  Need  has  its  sacred  rights.  Because 
we  want  forgiveness  and  help,  and  He  only 
can  forgive  and  help  us,  therefore  we  are  His. 

VII.  28,  29. 


My  faith  burns  low,  my  hope  burns  low, 
Only  my  heart's  desire  cries  out  in  me 

By  the  deep  thunder  of  its  want  and  woe, 
Cries  out  to  Thee. 


Lord,  Thou  art  Life  though  I  be  dead, 
Love's  Fire  Thou  art  however  cold  I  be: 

Nor  heaven  have  I,  nor  place  to  lay  my  head. 
Nor  home,  but  Thee. 

Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


DECEMBER    15.  349 


He  planteth  an  ash,  and  the  rain  doth  iiourish 
it. — Is.  xliv.  14. 

LET  it  not  be  a  group  of  ash-trees,  but  a 
group  of  men,  ...  a  thought  of  God 
entrusted  to  the  earth  for  its  embodiment  and 
execution.  What  are  these  dreams  and  visions, 
these  upward  Teachings,  these  certainties  of 
infinite  belongings, — what  are  they,  O  thought 
of  God,  but  the  unbroken  tension  of  the  chain 
which  binds  the  thinker  to  His  thought  for- 
ever ?  And  what  are  all  these  earthlinesses, 
these  tender  clingings  to  the  things  our  senses 
understand,  .  .  .  these  calls  of  present  duties, 
this  fear  of  dying,  this  love  of  the  present, 
warm,  domestic  earth, — what  are  they  all  but 
the  pressure  of  the  warm  ground  upon  the  seed 
entrusted  to  it  ?  The  man  who  does  not  some- 
how hold  the  complete  truth  about  his  life — 
both  of  these  truths  combined  in  one — does 
not  live  worthily.  The  man  who  has  and 
holds  them  both,  look,  what  a  life  he  lives! 
Look  how  substantially  his  roots  are  fastened 
in  the  earth.  Look  how  aspiringly  he  lifts  his 
branches  to  the  sky. 

V.  2S2,  283. 


Here  in    Thy    great  world-garden,    Lord,    we 

stand: 
Keep  us,  for  here  the  blossoms  blight  so  fast! 
The  fruit  is  flawed  in  turning  from  Thy  beams 
To  the  biting  east — to  folly  and  to  sin. 
And  let  all  trees,  the  wildings  of  the  wood 
And  grafts  of  rarest  culture,  waft  Thee  praise! 

Lucy  Larcom. 


350  DECEMBER    i6. 


THE  growth  of  the  tree  is  a  mysterious  and 
spiritual  power.  It  cannot  be  detected  at 
its  labor  when  with  a  sudden  stroke  of  the  axe 
you  tear  the  tree's  trunk  open.  Your  sight  is 
not  keen  enough  to  catch  it.  And  yet  how 
closely,  how  inextricably  it  is  bound  up  with 
the  grosser  elements,  in  connection  with  which 
alone  it  does  its  work.  There  must  be  the 
black  earth  and  the  brown  seed,  or  nothing 
comes.  What  growth-power  ever  made  mani- 
festation of  itself,  creating  out  of  nothing, 
in  the  air,  a  tree  that  had  no  history  and  no 
progenitor  ?  The  material  is  first,  and  then 
the  spiritual. 

And  need  I  even  suggest  to  you  how  every 
man  has  in  his  bodily  constitution  the  physical 
basis  of  the  most  subtle  and  transcendent  parts 
of  his  profoundest  life  ?  Out  of  the  very  mar- 
row of  his  bones  comes  something  which  his 
finest  affections  never  outgo,  and  which  gives 
a  color  to  his  soul's  loftiest  visions.  .  .  . 
There  is  a  physical  correspondent  to  every- 
thing he  thinks  or  fancies.  There  is  a  physical 
basis  to  his  most  spiritual  life. 

Do  honor  to  your  bodies.  Reverence  your 
physical  natures,  not  simply  for  themselves. 
Only  as  ends  they  are  not  worthy  of  it,  but  be- 
cause in  health  and  strength  lies  the  true 
basis  of  noble  thought  and  glorious  devotion. 
A  man  thinks  well  and  loves  well  and  prays 
well  because  of  the  rich  running  of  his  blood. 

VI.  245,  246,  249. 


Health  of  body  with  health  of  soul- 
This  is  the  only  worthy  goal. 


DECEMBER    17.  351 

The  Lord  God  formed  ??iafi  of  the  dust  of  the 
ground,  and  breathed  into  his  nostrils  the  breath  of 
life;  and  man  became  a  living  soul. — Gen.  ii.  7. 

I  DO  not  know,  I  cannot  guess,  what  was 
the  nature  of  the  historical  event  to  which 
that  verse  refers.  But  I  do  know  that  it  is 
absolutely  true  to  that  great  order  which  per- 
vades the  universe.  Everywhere  the  earthly 
conditions  offer  their  opportunities  to  the 
celestial  miracle.  The  fuel  is  cut  in  the  woods 
of  earth;  it  is  piled,  hard  and  lifeless,  on  the 
unheeding  stone;  and  then  from  it  the  flame 
arises,  a  live  aspiring  column,  and  lays  its 
fiery  tribute  at  the  feet  of  God.  "That  is 
not  first  which  is  spiritual,  but  that  which  is 
natural;  and  afterward  that  which  is  spiritual." 
Would  it  not  be  good  ...  if  these  words 
should  be  written  in  golden  letters  on  the 
walls  of  every  gymnasium  and  also  on  the 
walls  of  every  school  of  learning  and  cell  of 
meditation  in  the  world  ?  .  .  .  As  they  stood 
on  the  walls  of  the  gymnasium,  what  they 
declared  would  be  the  need  of  a  strong  body 
for  all  best  spiritual  life.  As  they  stood  writ- 
ten on  the  study  wall,  they  would  mean  the 
utter  failure  of  the  strongest  body  unless  a 
spiritual  life  came  down  from  above  and  occu- 
pied it,  came  out  from  within  and  clothed  it 
with  a  worthy  purposQ.  VT.  246,  248. 

Let  us  not  always  say, 

"  'Spite  of  this  flesh  to-day 
I  strove,  made  head,  (gained  ground  upon  the  whole  !  " 

As  the  bird  wings  and  sint^s, 

Let  us  cry,  "  All  good  things 
Are  ours,  nor  soul  helps  flesh  more,  now,  than  flesh  helps 

soul."  ]iR(JWNlN(). 


352  DECEMBER    i8. 

TTHERE  are  men  deeply  impressed  with  the 
^  infiniteness  of  life.  .  .  .  There  comes 
great  happiness  to  them.  That  happiness  is 
perfectly  hollow  unless  there  is  a  meaning  be- 
hind it,  unless  it  tells  of  intentions  some- 
where, unless  it  means  love.  They  know 
that  "Eat,  drink,  and  be  merry,"  is  not  the 
end  of  it  all.  To  love  some  one  who  is  loving 
them,  that  is  what  they  want  to  do.  "Oh, 
that  I  could  find  Him  !  Oh,  that  I  could  find 
Him!"  is  their  cry.  Great  sorrow  comes. 
But  to  them  sorrow  cannot  rest  in  broken 
limbs  or  lost  fortunes.  Those  again  are  only 
symbols.  The  essential  thing  lies  deeper. 
.  .  .  Then  if  any  glimpse  is  offered  of  a 
Son  of  God,  a  manifestation  of  the  Invisible 
Deity  who  sends  happiness  and  sorrow  and 
who  can  forgive  sin,  there  is  no  tendency  to 
disbelieve;  there  is  the  hunger  of  the  heart 
leaping  with  hope,  there  is  the  stretching  out 
of  the    arms    as    when    they    told    Bartimeus, 

"  Jesus  of  Nazareth  passeth  by," 

V.  207,  208. 

'Neath  some  shadow  oft  I  wait, 
Like  blind  Bartimeus'at  the  gate, 
Assured  that  when  my  Lord  draws  nigh, 
Sin,  doubt,  and  darkness  all  shall  fly; 
Hence  to  His  cross  I  cling  the  more. 
Whene'er  these  shadows  touch  my  door. 

John  Ordronaux. 


DECEMBER    19.  353 

The  Lord  is  at  hand. — Phil.  iv.  5. 

OH,  my  dear  friends,  if  you  knew  that  in 
the  most  evident  of  all  ways,  which  is 
by  death,  the  Lord  were  coming  to  you  to- 
morrow, and  if  you  could  be  perfectly  free 
from  all  base  feeling,  from  fear  and  flurry, 
from  defiance  and  from  dread  ?  .  .  .  what 
would  be  the  condition  which  it  would  make 
in  you  ?  Would  it  be  any  elevation,  refine- 
ment, solemnity,  and  broadening  of  life? 
Would  it  be  the  calming  of  frivolity,  the  re- 
lease of  charity,  the  kindling  of  hope  ?  Would 
it  not  be  all  of  these  ? 

Not  yet  for  us  does  that  great,  solemn  foot- 
fall sound  outside  the  door.  But  none  the  less 
is  the  Lord  at  hand.  He  is  always  at  hand. 
All  expectation  may  be  expectation  of  Him. 

IV.  368. 


Who  shall  know  the  Master's  coming? 
Whether  it  be  at  dawn  or  sunset, 
When  night  dews  weigh  down  the  wheat-ears, 
Or  while  noon  rides  high  in  heaven. 

Sleeping  lies  the  yellow  field  ? 
Only,  may  Thy  voice,  Good  Master, 
Peal  above  the  reapers'  chorus, 
And  the  sound  of  sheaves  slow  falling, — 
"  Gather  all  into  My  garner. 

For  it  is  My  harvest  time!  " 

Dinah  Muloch  Craik. 


354  DECEMBER    20. 


THAT  life  which  we  dream  of  in  ourselves 
we  see  in  Jesus.  Where  was  there  ever 
gentleness  so  full  of  energy  ?  What  life  as 
still  as  His  was  ever  so  pervaded  with  untiring 
and  restless  power  ?  Who  ever  knew  the  pur- 
poses for  which  he  worked  to  be  so  sure,  and 
yet  so  labored  for  them  as  if  they  were  uncer- 
tain ?  Who  ever  believed  his  truths  so  en- 
tirely, and  yet  believed  them  so  vividly  as 
Jesus  ?  Such  perfect  peace  that  never  grew 
listless  for  a  moment;  such  perfect  activity 
that  never  grew  restless  or  excited;  these  are 
the  wonders  of  the  life  of  Him  who  going  up 
and  down  the  rugged  ways  of  Palestine,  was 
spiritually  walking  on  "the  sea  of  glass 
mingled  with  fire." 

As  more  and  more  we  get  the  victory  over 
the  beast,  we  too  are  lifted  up  to  w^alk  where 
he  walked.  For  this  all  trial,  all  suffering, 
and  all  struggle  are  sent. 

IV.  126. 


Peace,    perfect   peace,    in   this  dark   world  of 

sin  ? 
The  blood  of  Jesus  whispers  peace  within. 

Peace,    perfect    peace,    by    thronging    duties 

pressed  ? 
To  do  the  will  of  Jesus,  this  is  rest. 

Peace,  perfect  peace,  our  future  all  unknown  ? 
Jesus  we  know,  and  He  is  on  the  throne. 

E.    H.    BiCKERSTETH. 


DECEMBER   21.  355 


\1  7HEN  Jesus  had  risen  from  the  dead,  you 
'  '  remember,  His  discii)le  refused  to  be- 
lieve till  with  his  own  hand  he  had  felt  the 
wounds  in  the  hands  and  feet  and  side.  And 
Jesus  gently  rebuking  him,  compares,  as  it 
were,  the  methods  of  authority  and  experi- 
ence, of  faith  and  science,  so  to  speak,  to  the 
advantage  of  the  former  when  He  says, 
"  Thomas,  because  thou  hast  seen  thou  hast 
believed.  Blessed  are  they  that  have  not  seen 
and  yet  have  believed."  And  yet  when  we 
come  to  think  of  it,  is  not  His  rebuke  really 
that  Thomas  had  not  used  the  method  of  ex- 
perience enough,  not  that  he  demands  it  too 
much  ?  He  rebukes  him  that  in  all  the  years 
that  they  had  been  together  he  had  not  ob- 
served Him  deeply  enough  to  learn  His  char- 
acter and  understand  His  words.  Is  He  not 
pleading,  not  against  science,  but  for  a  higher 
science  ?  .  .  .  "  If  I  do  not  the  works  of  my 
Father  believe  me  not,"  a  direct  appeal  to 
experience. 

VI.  133. 

Oh,  for  a  faith  more  strong  and  true 
Than  that  which  doubting  Thomas  knew — 

A  faith  assured  and  clear, — 
To  know  that  He  who  for  us  died — 
Rejected,  scorned,  and  crucified — 

L'ves  and  is  with  us  here! 

Phekf.  Carv. 


356  DECEMBER    22. 


And  a  little  child  shall  lead  the 7n. — Is.  xi.  6. 

HE  who  helps  a  child  helps  humanity  with 
a  distinctness,  with  an  immediateness, 
which  no  other  help  given  to  human  creatures 
in  any  other  stage  of  their  human  life  can  pos- 
sibly give  again.  He  who  puts  his  blessed 
influence  into  a  river  blesses  the  land  through 
which  that  river  is  to  flow;  but  he  who  puts 
his  influence  into  the  fountain  where  the  river 
comes  out  puts  his  influence  everywhere.  No 
land  it  may  not  reach.  No  ocean  it  may  not 
make  sweeter.  No  bark  it  may  not  bear.  No 
wheel  it  may  not  turn.  Sometimes  we  get  at 
things  best  by  their  contraries.  Learn  the 
rich  beauty  of  helping  a  child  by  the  awful- 
ness  of  hurting  a  child, — hurting  a  child  even 
in  his  physical  frame, — hurting  him  still  more 
in  soul  and  mind.  The  thing  that  made  the 
Divine  Master  indignant  as  He  stood  there  in 
Jerusalem  was  that  He  dreamed  of  seeing  be- 
fore Him  a  man  who  had  harmed  some  of  these 
little  ones,  and  He  said  of  any  such  ruflian, 
**  It  were  better  for  him  that  he  had  never 
been  born."  If  it  is  such  an  awful  thing 
to  hurt  a  child's  life,  to  aid  a  child's  life  is 
beautiful.  X.  506. 

Great  hearts  have  largest  room  to  bless  the 
small; 
Strong  natures  give  the  weaker  home  and  rest; 
So  Christ  took  little  children  to  His  breast, 

And  with  a  reverence  more  profound  we  fall 
In  the  majestic  presence  that  can  give 
Truth's  simplest  message:   "  'Tis  by  love  ye 
live."  Lucy  Larcom. 


DECEMBER    23.  357 

T^HE  first  truth  is  the  essential  unity  of 
*  man's  life  and  God's,  and  so  the  es- 
sential glory  of  humanity.  Christ  came  not 
merely  to  man,  but  into  man;  and  that  was 
possible  because  the  manhood  into  which  He 
entered  was  "His  own,"  had  original  and 
fundamental  unity  with  His  Godhood,  was 
made  in  the  image  of  God.  Here  was  man, 
made  in  God's  image,  separated  from  God, 
trying  spasmodically  to  struggle  back,  failing 
and  falling  so  continually  that  the  conscious- 
ness that  he  belonged  with  God  was  well-nigh 
lost.  That  it  might  not  be  lost,  that  it  might 
be  a  real  and  living  thing,  it  must  be  asserted 
from  the  other  side.  Man  and  God  had  the 
capacity  of  entrance  into  each  other.  Since 
man  would  not,  and,  as  it  almost  seemed  now, 
could  not  enter  into  God,  God  would  enter 
into  man.  Man  had  failed  of  being  Godlike; 
God,  then,  would  be  manlike,  and  so  the  first 
truth — that  God  and  man  belonged  together 
— should  not  be  lost  for  want  of  assertion.  Is 
not  this  a  noble  and  inspiring  value  of  the  In- 
carnation ?  vn.  26. 

Lord,  if  Thou  grant  me  grace  to  hear  and  see 
Thy  very  Self  who  stoopest  thus  to  me, 

I  make  but  slight  account 
Of  aught  beside  wherein  to  sink  or  mount. 
Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


358  DECEMBER    24. 

Because  there  was  no  roojn  for  them  t?i  the  iii7t. 

Luke  ii.  7. 

RELIGION  makes  us  feel  the  littleness  to 
which  we  have  reduced  our  lives,  and 
then  proclaims,  in  contrast  with  that  littleness, 
the  great  capacity  God  meant  them  to  have. 
"You  have  cramped  your  life,"  it  seems  to 
say.  "  You  have  made  it  small  and  narrow. 
By  long  unspirituality  you  have  made  its 
doors  so  low  that  none  but  short  or  stooping 
thoughts  can  enter.  You  have  made  its 
rooms  so  mean  that  great  truths  can  not  live 
in  them.  But  never  dare  to  think  that  this 
was  God's  plan  for  your  life.  He  drew  its 
architecture  on  a  lordly  scale.  He  designed 
for  you  great,  generous,  capacious  lives.  He 
built  you  to  be  '  temples  of  the  Holy  Ghost.' 
.  .  .  You  may  make  your  lives  foul  and  taw- 
dry and  meagre;  you  may  diminish  and  over- 
crowd them  till  there  is  no  room  for  a  noble 
thought  or  a  pure  desire;  but  you  do  it  at 
your  peril.  God  made  them  roomy;  and  there 
is  room  for  His  holy  Son  to  find  a  nativity 
within  them  if  you  will  only  set  and  keep 
their  chambers  open." 

VII.  80,  81. 


Christ,  He  requires  still,  whensoe'er  He  comes 
To  feed  or  lodge,  to  have  the  best  of  rooms: 
Give   Him  the  choice;   grant   Him  the  nobler 

part 
Of  all  the  house: — the  best  of  all's  the  heart. 

Herrick. 


DECEMBER    25.  359 


The  Word  was  made  flesh,  and  divelt  among  us. 

John  i.  14. 


WHO  is  it  that  lies  once  more  to-day  be- 
fore the  world,  the  Son  of  God  and  Son 
of  man,  at  Bethlehem  ?  Mary  bows  down  and 
learns  the  Incarnation,  and  feels  the  solem- 
nity and  sublimity  of  the  human  life  into 
which  the  Divinity  has  entered.  The  wise 
men  come  and  find  their  King  in  this  weak 
babe.  The  shepherds  see  the  hope  of  Israel 
fulfilled,  the  Saviour  come.  Oh,  on  this  Christ- 
mas Day  let  us  be  with  them  all!  Let  us  feel 
thrilling  through  this  humanity  which  we  so 
often  scorn  the  glorifying  fire  of  the  Incarna- 
tion. Let  us  give  up  our  lives  to  Him  and  beg 
that  He  will  rule  them.  But,  more  than  all, 
let  us  give  our  souls,  hungry  and  sinful,  a 
Christmas  leave  to  go  to  Him  who  is  their 
Saviour,  whom  they  will  know  for  their  Saviour 
if  we  let  them  go  to  Him. 

It  is  a  day  of  joy  and  charity.  May  God 
make  you  very  rich  in  both  by  giving  you 
abundantly  the  glory  of  the  Incarnation,  the 
peace  of  Christ's  kingship,  and  the  grace  of 
Christ's  salvation. 

VII.  96. 


The  heart  must  ring  Thy  Christmas  bells, 

Thy  inward  altars  raise; 
Its  faith  and  hope  Thy  canticles. 

And  its  obedience  praise! 

Whittier. 


36o  DECEMBER    26. 

Now  the  God  of  hope  fill  you  with  all  joy  a?id 
peace  m  believing^  that  ye  ?nay  abound  i7t  hope  by 
the  poiver  of  the  Holy  Ghost. — Rom.  xv.  13. 

SUCH  peace  in  believing  is  to  be  distinctly 
a  peace  by  Gospel  faith.  .  .  .  Let  me  be 
a  thorough  believer  in  Jesus  Christ, — let  me, 
that  is,  have  taken  Him  with  all  the  revela- 
tion of  humanity  that  there  is  in  Him,  and 
where  is  the  fellow-man  with  whom  I  shall  not 
be  at  peace  ?  Is  it  the  man  who  domineers 
over  me  and  bullies  me  ?  The  supreme  mastery 
of  my  Lord  adjusts  all  these  lower  masteries, 
and  compels  them  to  keep  their  proper  places. 
When  I  have  learned  really  to  "  fear  Him  who 
can  cast  both  soul  and  body  into  hell,"  I  am 
able  indeed  not  to  "fear  them  that  can  kill 
the  body."  The  martyr  seeing  Christ  stand- 
ing at  the  right  hand  of  God  is  at  full  peace 
with  his  murderers. 

VI.  203,  204. 

And  he  [St.  Stephen]  kneeled  dow7i^  and  cried 
with  a  loud  voice  :  Lord,  lay  not  this  sin  to  their 
charge.  And  whe?i  he  had  said  this,  he  fell 
asleep. — Acts  vii.  60. 

Oh,  for  the  vision  that  sufficed 
That  first  blest  martyr  after  Christ, 

And  gave  a  peace  so  deep 
That  while  he  saw  with  raptured  eyes 
Jesus  with  God  in  Paradise, 

He,  praying,  fell  asleep! 

Phebe  Gary. 


DECEMBER    27.  361 


Thou  wilt  hide  them  in  the  secret  of  Thy  pres- 
ence .  .  .  from  the  strife  of  tongues. 

PS.    XXxi.   20c 

THE  very  words  are  full  of  peace  before  we 
hardly  touch  them  to  open  their  meaning. 
But  their  meaning  is  deeper  the  more  we  study 
it.  .  .  .  Suppose  that  St.  John  should  come 
and  talk  with  you,  or  be  at  your  side  without 
a  word  in  the  midst  of  the  wildest  of  our 
social  Babels,  Would  he  not  bring  his  peace 
with  him  ?  Would  you  not  let  every  one  else 
go,  and  be  alone  with  him,  even  in  all  the 
crowd  ?  And  now  if  it  is  possible,  instead  of 
the  great  disciple,  for  God  Himself  to  be  with 
you,  so  that  His  presence  is  real,  so  that  He 
lets  you  understand  His  thoughts  and  lets  you 
know  that  He  understands  yours;  and  as  close 
to  you — nay,  infinitely  closer — than  the  men 
who  crowd  you  round,  and  whose  voices  are 
in  your  ears,  the  unseen  God  is  truly  with 
you,  what  then  ?  .  .  .  He  has  blinded  you  to 
all  but  Himself.  He  has  hid  you  in  the  secret 
of  His  presence. 

I.  83,  84,  85. 

Yet  shall  I  envy  blessed  John  ? 

Nay,  not  so  verily, 
Now  that  Thou,  Lord,  both  Man  and  God, 

Dost  dwell  in  me: 
Upbuilding  with  Thy  Manhood's  might 

My  frail  humanity; 
Yea,  Thy  Divinehood  pouring  forth. 

In  fulness  filling  me. 

Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


362  DECEMBER    28. 

It  is  no  little  thing  when  a  fresh  soul, 

And  ,  a   fresh    heart,    with    their    unmeasured 

scope 
For  good,  not  gravitating  earthward  yet,  .  .  . 
Are  sent  into  the  world, — no  little  thing 
When  this  unbounded  possibility 
Into  the  outer  silence  is  withdrawn. 

James  Russell  Lowell. 

WHAT  is  it  when  a  child  dies?  It  is  the 
great  Head-master  calling  that  child  up 
into  His  own  room,  away  from  all  the  under- 
teachers,  to  finish  his  education  under  His  own 
eye.  The  whole  thought  of  a  child's  growth 
and  development  in  heaven  is  one  of  the  most 
exalting  and  bewildering  on  which  the  mind 
can  rest.  Always  the  child  must  be  there. 
Always  there  must  be  something  in  those  who 
died  as  children  to  make  them  different  to  all 
eternity  from  those  who  grew  up  to  be  men 
here  among  all  the  temptations  and  hindrances 
of  earth.  There  must  forever  be  something 
in  their  perfect  trust  in  the  Father,  something 
in  the  peculiar  nearness  and  innocent  famili- 
arity of  their  life  with  Jesus,  .  .  .  something 
pure  even  among  all  the  perfect  purity  which 
we  shall  all  have  reached,  something  wiser 
than  the  wisest,  showing  that  even  there  there 
is  a  revelation  that  can  be  given  only  to  the 
babes;  something  more  perfectly  triumphant 
and  serene  to  mark  forever  the  perfected  life 
of  those  who  never  sinned. 

IV.  149. 

These  are  they  which  follow  the  Lamb  whither- 
soever He  goeth. — Rev.  xiv.  4. 


DECEMBER    29.  363 


//  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be^  but  we 
hioiu  that  when  He  shall  appear  we  shall  be  like 
Him. — I  John  iii.  2. 

IS  life  decreasing  or  increasing?  Is  it  grow- 
ing richer  or  poorer  ?  Tiie  ordinary  cheap 
philosophies  assume  that  life  is  like  a  fire 
which  speedily  reaches  the  fulness  of  its  heat, 
and  then  fades  and  fades  till  it  goes  out.  The 
high  philosophy  which  gets  its  light  from  God 
believes  that  life,  as  it  moves  deeper  and 
deeper  into  God,  must  move  from  richness 
into  richness  always.  .  .  .  All  that  we  believe 
is  but  the  promise  of  the  perfect  faith.  All 
that  we  do  is  great  with  its  anticipation  of  the 
complete  obedience.  All  that  we  are  but 
gives  us  suggestions  of  the  richness  which  our 
being  will  attain.  Those  moments  make  our 
real,  effective,  enthusiastic  life.  They  create 
the  fulfilment  of  their  own  hopes  and  dreams. 
Oh,  cherish  them!  Oh,  believe  that  no  man 
lives  at  his  best  to  whom  life  is  not  becoming 
better  and  better,  always  aware  of  greater  and 
greater  forces,  capable  of  diviner  and  diviner 
deeds  and  joys!  XII.  21,  22. 


Oh,  sweet  to  live,  to  love,  and  to  aspire! 

To  know  that  whatsoever  we  attain, 
Beyond  the  utmost  summit  of  desire 

Heights  upon  heights  eternally  remain. 
To  humble  us,  to  lift  us  up,  to  show 
Into  what  luminous  deeps  we  onward  go. 

Lucy  Larcom. 


364  DECEMBER   30. 

//  is  to7vard  evenhig^  and  the  day  is  far  spent. 

Luke  xxiv.  29. 

THE  year  which  came  to  us  twelve  months 
ago,  all  fresh  and  young,  is  old  and 
weary.  A  new  year  will  come  to  crowd  him 
from  his  place.  On  such  a  day  it  is  not  mere 
habit,  it  is  a  natural  and  healthy  instinct, 
which  makes  us  stand  between  the  new  year 
and  the  old,  between  the  living  and  the  dead, 
and  listen  to  them  as  they  speak  to  one  another. 
The  old  year  says  to  the  new  year,  "Take 
this  man  and  show  him  greater  things  than  I 
have  been  able  to  show  him.  You  must  be  for 
him  a  fuller,  richer  day  of  the  Lord  than  I 
could  be."  The  new  year  says  to  the  old,  "  I 
will  take  him  and  do  for  him  the  best  that 
I  can  do.  But  all  that  I  can  do  for  him  will 
be  possible  only  in  virtue  of  the  preparation 
which  you  have  made,  only  because  of  what 
you  have  done  for  him  already." 

IV.  357. 


I  am  fading  from  you, 

But  one  draweth  near, 
Called  the  Angel-guardian 

Of  the  coming  Year. 

I  brought  good  desires, — 

Though  as  yet  but  seeds, 
Let  the  New  Year  make  them 

Blossom  into  deeds. 

ADELAmE  A.  Procter. 


DECEMBER   31.  365 

The?i  Cometh  the  efid. — i  Cor.  xv.  24. 

/  7vill  refne^nber  the  years  of  the  right  hand  of 
the  inost  High. — Ps.  Ixxvii.  10. 

IF  around  this  instability  of  human  life  is 
wrapped  the  great  permanence  of  the  life 
of  God  ...  if  the  whole  element  of  time 
is  so  lost  in  His  eternity  that  not  the  begin- 
ning and  the  ending  of  experiences  but  their 
spiritual  relations  to  our  growing  characters 
is  everything, — then  is  there  not  light  upon  it 
all  ?  To  value  everything  which  comes  to 
me,  and  yet  to  know  that  not  its  form  but  its 
spiritual  essence  is  really  valuable,  therefore 
to  hasten  while  I  have  it  to  get  out  of  it  what 
it  has  to  give  me,  and  to  even  rejoice  that 
some  day  in  the  loss  of  its  formal  presence  I 
shall  be  able  to  make  myself  completely  sure 
of  the  possession  of  its  spirit, — that  is  the  true 
attitude  of  the  soul  toward  every  good  thing 
that     God     gives, — health,     friends,     wealth, 

learning,  time. 

V.  369. 

Why  cry  so  many  voices,  choked  with  tears, 
"  The  year  is  dead!  "     It  rather  seems  to  me 
Full  of  such  rich  and  boundless  life  to  be, 
It  is  a  presage  of  the  eternal  years. 
.   .   .     So  let  us  rather  cry: 
This  y~cctr  of  grace  still  lives;  it  cannot  die! 

Mary  G.  Slocum. 


ASH-WEDNESDAY.  367 


Turn  ye  evoi  unto  Ale  ivith  all  your  hearty  and 
7vitk  fastifig. — Joel  ii.  12. 

FASTING  is  both  a  symbol  and  a  means. 
Every  kind  of  abstinence  is  at  once  an 
expression  of  humility  and  an  opening  of  the 
life.  What  then  is  Lent  ?  Ah,  if  our  souls 
are  sinful  and  are  shut  too  close  by  many 
worldlinesses  against  that  Lord  who  is  their 
life  and  Saviour,  what  do  we  need  ?  Let  us 
have  the  symbols  which  belong  to  sin  and  to 
repentance.  Let  us  at  least  for  a  few  weeks, 
among  the  many  weeks  of  life,  proclaim  by 
soberness  and  quietude  of  life  that  we  know 
our  responsibility  and  how  often  we  have  been 
false  to  it.  Let  us  not  sweep  through  the 
whole  year  in  buoyant  exultation,  as  if  there 
were  no  shame  upon  us,  nothing  for  us  to  re- 
pent of,  nothing  for  us  to  fear.  By  some 
small  symbols  let  us  bear  witness  that  we  know 
something  of  the  solemnity  of  living,  the 
dreadfulness  of  sin,  the  struggle  of  repent- 
ance. .  .  .  Perhaps  the  symbol  may  strike  in 
and  deepen  the  solemnity  which  it  expresses. 
Perhaps  as  we  tell  God  of  what  little  sorrow 
for  our  sins  we  have,  our  sorrow  for  our  sins 
may  be  increased,  and  while  we  stand  there 
in  His  presence  the  fasting  may  gather  a  truer 
realitv  of  penitence  behind  it. 

II.  214. 

Who  goeth  in  the  way  that  C'hrist  hath  gone 
Is  much  more  sure  to  meet  with  Him  than  one 
That  travelleth  byways. 

George  Herbert. 


368  GOOD    FRIDAY. 


It  is  finished. — John  xix.  30. 

OH,  what  a  finishing  that  was!  It  is  as  if 
eternity  were  crowded  into  the  heart  of 
Him  who  spoke.  All  He  had  been  forever  had 
consummated  itself  at  last.*  The  long  yearn- 
ing to  let  men  know  what  a  love  waited  for 
them  in  the  heart  of  God  was  satisfied.  The 
light  was  kindled  on  the  mountain-top,  and 
already  the  quick  ear  of  Divinity  heard  the 
stirring  in  thousands  of  valleys,  where  men, 
hopeless  before,  were  gathering  up  their  bur- 
dens and  with  the  inspiration  of  an  unfamiliar 
hope  were  starting  to  struggle  up  with  them, 
determined  not  to  rest  until  they  cast  them 
down  into  the  shadow  of  that  unseen  cross. 
What  cry  like  this  has  the  world  ever  heard  ? 
Not  even  that  first  utterance  of  calm  creative 
power,  "Let  there  be  light,"  had  greater 
meaning  or  sublimity  than  this  last  agony  of 
love  that  burst  from  the  lips  of  the  satisfied 
Redeemer:  "  I  have  been  lifted  up.  I  shall 
draw  all  men  unto  Me.      Now  it  is  finished." 

VII.  265. 


Done  is  the  work  that  saves! 

Once  and  forever  done, 
Finished  the  righteousness 

That  clothes  the  unrighteous  one. 
The  love  that  blesses  us  below 
Is  flowing  freely  to  us  now. 

HORATIUS   BONAR. 


EASTER    DAY.  369 

That  I  may  know  Him,  and  the  power  of  His 
resurrectioji. — Phil.  iii.  10. 

THE  life  of  a  true  Christian  seems  to  me  to 
be  full  of  Easters;  to  be  one  perpetual 
renewal  of  things  from  their  lower  to  their 
higher,  from  their  temporal  to  their  spiritual 
shape  and  power.  You  are  called  upon  to  give 
up  a  luxury,  and  you  do  it.  The  little  piece 
of  comfortable  living  is  quietly  buried  away 
underground,  .  .  .  undergoes  some  strange 
alteration  in  its  burial,  and  comes  out  a  spir- 
itual quality  that  blesses  and  enriches  your 
soul  forever.  ...  So  the  partial  and  imper- 
fect and  temporary  are  always  being  taken 
away  from  us  and  buried,  that  the  perfect  and 
eternal  may  arise  out  of  their  tombs  to  bless 
us.  .  .  .  They  are  not  simply  taken  away  to 
be  kept — the  child  that  you  saw  die,  the  dream 
that  you  saw  fade — to  be  kept  in  some  future 
state  till  you  shall  be  fit  to  come  and  get 
them;  .  .  .  they  are  here  all  the  time;  not  to 
be  had  by-and-by,  but  to  be  had  now.  They 
can  be  had  in  their  spiritual  return  to  you  by- 
and-by  only  as  you  first  have  them  and  keep 
them  spiritually  now.  .  .  .  The  power  of  the 
future  resurrection  is  all  along  a  power  of 
present  regeneration. 

What  can  I  do,  then,  but  invite  you  all  to 
know  that  power  by  earnest  self-surrender,  by 
patient  prayer,  and  by  a  childlike  faith  that 
willingly  takes  into  its  loving  life  the  willing, 
living,  loving  Christ  of  Easter  Day  ? 

VII.  277,  278,  285. 

He  that  hath  the  Son^  hath  life. — John  v.  12. 


370  ASCENSION-DAY. 

A  cloud  received  Him  out  of  their  sight. 

Acts  ii.  9. 

FOR  a  human  being  to  go  out  from  this 
earth  is  a  dreadful  thing  if  it  is  only  with 
this  earth  that  humanity  has  any  known  rela- 
tion. .  .  .  But  now  let  us  believe  in  the  Ascen- 
sion. Once  a  human  being — the  best  and 
completest  of  all  human  beings  that  have  ever 
lived,  the  human  being  whose  humanity  was 
perfect  by  its  very  union  with  Divinity — has 
gone,  still  human,  out  of  the  sight  of  men, — 
gone,  evidently  all  alive.  We  can  not  trace 
His  course.  The  cloud  received  Him.  But 
yet  we  know  that  somewhere  out  beyond  the 
limits  of  our  little  earth  that  true  humanity 
of  His  has  found  a  home.  Humanity  can  live 
beyond  the  earth,  can  keep  broad  live  rela- 
tions with  the  universe.  The  man  who  goes 
to-day,  then,  goes  still  into  the  dark,  but  the 
darkness  into  which  he  goes  is  pierced  by  a 
path  of  light,  and  at  its  heart  there  is  a  home 
of  light  to  which  he  goes.  The  humanity  of 
Jesus  has  gone  before  and  makes  the  vast  un- 
known not  unfamiliar.  Around  our  thought 
of  it  our  thoughts  of  the  men  we  have  seen 
die,  our  thoughts  of  our  own  coming  deaths, 
can  gather  with  confidence  and  calmness. 

VII.  298. 


Thou  Who   wast  Centre  of  all  heights  on  the 

Mount  of  Beatitudes, 
Grant  us  to  sit  with  Thee  in  heavenly  places. 
Christina  G.  Rossetti. 


WHITSUNDAY.  371 

He  saith  unto  the?n.  Have  ye  received  the  Holy 
Ghost  since  ye  believed? — Acts  xix.  2. 

AND  what  that  first  Whitsunday  was  to  all 
the  world,  one  certain  day  becomes  to 
any  man,  the  day  when  the  Holy  Spirit  comes 
to  him.  God  enters  into  Him  and  he  sees  all 
things  with  God's  vision.  Truths  which  were 
dead  spring  into  life  and  are  as  real  to  him  as 
they  are  to  God.  He  is  filled  with  the  Spirit 
and  straightway  he  believes;  not  as  he  used 
to,  coldly  holding  the  outsides  of  things.  He 
has  looked  right  into  their  hearts.  His  belief 
in  Jesus  is  all  afire  with  love.  His  belief  in 
immortality  is  eager  with  anticipation.  Can 
any  day  in  all  his  life  compare  with  that  day  ? 
If  it  were  to  break  forth  into  flames  of  fire  and 
tremble  with  sudden  and  mysterious  wind, 
would  it  seem  strange  to  him — the  day  when 
he  first  knew  how  near  God  was,  and  how  true 
truth  was,  and  how  deep  Christ  was  ?  O,  have 
we  known  that  day  ?  O,  careless,  easy,  cold 
believers!  if  one  should  come  and  ask  you, 
"  Have  you  received  the  Holy  Ghost  since  you 
believed  ?  "  dare  you,  could  you,  answer  him, 
"Yes"?  11.227. 

I  bow  my  forehead  to  the  dust, 
I  veil  mine  eyes  for  shame. 

And  urge,  in  trembling  self-distrust, 
A  prayer  without  a  claim. 

No  offering  of  mine  own  I  have. 
Nor  works  my  faith  to  prove; 

I  can  but  give  the  gifts  He  gave. 
And  plead  His  love  for  love. 

Whittier. 


372  TRINITY    SUNDAY. 


Thf'ough  Him  we  both  have  access  by  one  Spirit 
unto  the  Father. — Ephes.  ii.  i8. 

SEE  what  Godhood  the  soul  has  come  to 
recognize  in  the  world.  First,  there  is 
the  Creative  Deity  from  which  it  sprang,  and 
to  which  it  is  struggling  to  return — the  divine 
End,  God  the  Father.  Then  there  is  the 
Incarnate  Deity,  which  makes  that  return  pos- 
sible by  the  exhibition  of  God's  love, — the 
divine  method,  God  the  Son;  and  then  there 
is  this  Infused  Deity,  this  divine  energy  in  the 
soul  itself,  taking  its  capacities  and  setting 
them  homeward  to  the  Father — the  divine 
Power  of  Salvation,  God  the  Holy  Spirit. 
To  the  Father,  through  the  Son,  by  the  Spirit. 
Let  us  keep  the  faith  of  the  Trinity.  .  .  . 
Let  us  seek  to  come  to  the  highest,  through 
the  highest,  by  the  highest.  Let  the  end  and 
the  method  and  the  power  of  our  life  be  all 
divine.  If  our  hearts  are  set  on  that,  Jesus 
will  accept  us  for  His  disciples;  all  that  He 
promised  to  do  for  those  who  trusted  Him,  He 
will  do  for  us.  He  will  show  us  the  Father; 
He  will  send  us  the  Comforter;  nay,  what  can 
He  do,  or  what  can  we  ask  that  will  outgo  the 
strong  and  sweet  assurance  of  the  promise: 
Through  Him  we  shall  have  access  by  one 
Spirit  unto  the  Father. 

I.  243,  246. 

We  from  Thy  oneness  come, 
Beyond  it  cannot  roam. 

And  in  Thy  oneness  find  our  one  eternal  home. 

Faber. 


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"  The  enthusiasm  for  the  profession  which  this  book  displays  has 
contagion  in  it,  because  it  is  not  expended  on  that  which  separates  the 
profession  from  other  occupations,  but  on  that  which  it  shares  with 
them.  Throughout  the  book  runs  a  single  thought  never  lost  sight 
of, — the  greater  the  man  the  greater  the  preacher ;  and  again  and 
again,  when  discoursing  of  practical  methods,  the  lecturer  returns  in 
some  form  to  his  golden  text,  that  it  is  the  man  behind  the  sermon 
which  makes  the  sermon  a  power.  It  is  because  the  lecturer,  holding 
this  truth  firmly,  addresses  himself  to  the  living  facts  of  a  preacher's 
profession  rather  than  to  the  mechanism  or  elaborate  organization  in 
which  he  works,  that  his  words  will  be  life  to  the  living  and  glittering 
generalities  to  the  moribund." — Atlantic  Monthly. 

THE    INFLUENCE    OF   JESUS. 

The    Boblen   Lectures   for    1879.      M^h    Thousand.      i6mo.     274 
pages.     Cloth,  $1.25. 

Lecture  I.  The  Influence  of  Jesus  on  the  Moral  Life  of  Man. 
"         II.  The  Influence  of  Jesus  on  the  Social  Life  of  Man. 
"       III.   The  Influence  of  Jesus  on  the  Emotional  l^ife  of  Man. 
"        IV.  The  Influence  of  Jesus  on  the  Intellectual  Life  of  Man. 
"  The  ringing  keynote  is  the  Fatherhood  of  God  to  all   mankind, 
the  favorite  idea  of  this  distinguished   preacher,  and  one  which  he 
here  develops  with  all  his  characteristic  energy,  eloquence  and  hope- 
fulness."—  The  Literary  World. 

TOLERANCE. 

Two  Lectures  addressed  to  the  Students  of  several  of  the  Divinity 

Schools   of   the    Protestant    Episcopal    Church.      4th    Thousand. 

i6mo.     Ill  pages.     Cloth,  75  cents.     Paper,  50  cents. 

"  Mr.  Brooks's  two  lectures  in  eloquence,  sweetness,  and  literary 

charm  are  what  he  always  is  when  at  all  equal  to  himself.     For  their 

substance  they  lay  down  a  doctrine  of  tolerance  which  would  at  a  touch 

brmg  all  sections  of  Christendom   together  on  the  basis  of  a  tolerance 

which  carries  in  it  the  promise  of  spiritual  unity." — Independent. 

BAPTISM  AND   CONFIRMATION. 

15th  Thousand.     Paper,  10  cents. 

THE  GOOD  WINE  AT  THE  FEAST'S  END. 

A  Sermon  on  Growing  Old.     Paper,  25  cents. 

A  CHRISTMAS   SERMON. 

Paper,  25  cents. 

THE    SYMMETRY   OF   LIFE. 

An  Address  to  Young  Men.     Paper,  2s  cents. 

THE   LIFE    HERE    AND   THE    LIFE 
HEREAFTER. 

In  attractive  paper  covers.     25  cents. 

AN    EASTER    SERMON. 

Paper,  2s  cents. 

THE    LIVING  CHRIST. 

An  Easter  Sermon.     Paper,  25  cents 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS^S  WRITINGS. 


ESSAYS  AND   ADDRESSES. 

Religious,  Literary  and  Social.     Edited  by  the  Rev.  John  Cotton 

Hhooks.      Larcre    i2mo.      538   pages.      Gilt   top,   $2.00.     White 

cloth,  gilt  edges,  $2.50. 

Among  the  thirty-seven  Essays  are  "Heresy,"  "The  liest 
Methods  of  Promoting  Spiritual  Life,"  "  Authority  and  Conscience," 
"A  Century  of  Church  Drowth  in  lioston,"  "  I'he  Conditions  of 
Church  Growth  in  Missionary  Lands,"  "Poetry,"  "The  Purposes 
of  Scholarship,"  "  Milton  as  an  Educator,"  "Courage,"  "  Dean  Stan- 
ley," "  Martin  Luther,"  "  Piography,"  "  Literature  and  Life,"  etc. 

"A  welcome  memorial  of  his  life  and  work — another  evidence  of 
his  widespread  sympathies,  his  intellectual  activity,  and  above  all  his 
loving  and  Catholic  Christianity.  Every  one  of  these  essays  and 
addresses  is  worth  not  merely  reading,  but  study,  for  its  own  sake  ; 
for  its  clearness  and  purity  of  style,  its  sincerity  and  suggestiveness, 
its  information,  its  strength  and  purpose." — Churc/tinan. 

"  Every  essay  and  address  is  distinguished  by  that  rich  exuber- 
ance of  thought  and  noble  earnestness  of  purpose  that  made  Phillips 
Brooks  unique  among  the  religious  teachers  of  this  generation." 

— New  I'ork  Tribune. 

LETTERS   OF  TRAVEL. 

Written  to  his  P'amily.   i^th  Thousand.  Large  i2mo.  302  pages.  Cloth, 
gilt  top,  §2.00.     White  cloth,  full  gilt,  with  cloth  cover,  $2.50. 

CONTENTS. 

First  Journey  Abroad.     1S65-1866. 

In  the  Tyrol  and  Switzerland.     1870. 

Summer  in  Northern  Europe.     1872. 

From  London  to  Venice.     1874. 

England  and  the  Continent.     1877. 

Li  Paris,  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland.     1880. 

A  Year  in  Europe  and  India.     1882-1883. 

England  and  Europe.     1885. 

Across  the  Continent  to  San  Francisco.     1886. 

A  Summer  in  Japan.     1889. 

Summer  of  1890.     Last  Journey  Abroad. 
"  They  abound  in  everything  which  can  make  such  a  compilation 
attractive  —  pleasing   scenes   and    incident,    good   company,    a  light, 
dignified  and  vivacious  style,  and  the  strong,  personal  charm  of  a  very 
unusual  man  driving  the  quill." — The  I mhpeudent. 

"  We  owe  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  the  family  who  have  consented 
thus  to  open  the  door  and  let  us  sit  by  Phillips  Hrooks's  side  and  hear 
hira  talk  in  familiar  conversation." — The  Outlook. 


Sent  by  mail,  post-paid,  on  receipt  0/ price. 

E,  P.  DUTTON    &    CO.,  Publishers, 

31  West  23d  Street,  New  York. 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS'S  WRITINGS. 


PHILLIPS  BROOKS  YEAR  BOOK. 

Selections   by  H.  L.  S.  and   L.  H.  S.     31st  Thousand.     i6mo.     372 

pages.     Gilt  top,  $1.25. 

"  1  am  so  much  impressed  with  its  wonderful  insight  and  the 
spiritual  fitness  of  the  quotations  that  I  desire  to  express  my  personal 
gratitude  to  the  editors  for  the  spiritual  help  which  they  have  given 
to  me  and  to  thousands  of  others,  by  the  rare  discrimination  and 
excellent  taste  which  they  have  shown  in  their  happy  work.  No 
complaint  can  be  made  to  the  effect  that  this  book  does  not  fairly 
represent  Bishop  Brooks.  It  gives  us  a  great  many  of  his  best  thoughts, 
his  communion  with  the  Master,  his  spiritual  insights,  and  his  highest 
aspirations." 

"  One  of  the  richest  and  most  beautiful  books  of  the  year  in  point 
of  contents.  ...  It  would  probably  be  impossible  to  find  in  any 
volume  of  this  size,  drawn  from  distinctively  religious  writings,  a 
richer  fertility  of  spiritual  resource  and  intellectual  insight  than  is  to 
be  found  in  these  pages."  —  The  Outlook. 

"  Those  who  have  known  and  loved  Phillips  Brooks,  those  who 
have  listened  to  his  glowing  words  and  seen  his  illumined  face,  and 
those  who  have  merely  been  able  to  trace  his  thought  in  print,  will 
take  a  tender  pleasure  in  turning  the  leaves  of  this  "Year  Book" 
compiled  by  loving  hands.  It  will  be  a  help  from  day  to  day  ;  for  the 
ringing  sentences,  the  wise  counsellings  and  the  inciting  to  a  higher 
life,  strong  in  themselves,  seem  almost  sacred  now  one  feels  impelled 
to  heed  them." — Boston  Transcript, 

JUST  READY. 

GOOD   CHEER    FOR   A  YEAR. 

Selections  for  every  day  by  W.  M.  L.  Jay.     i6mo.     378  pages.     Gilt 
top,  $1.25. 

THE   PHILLIPS   BROOKS   CALENDAR 
FOR    1897. 

Twelve  leaves  (8Ji(  x  10),  with  illustrations  in  colors,  and   selections 
from  last  volume  of  Sermons.     In  box,  f  i.oo. 

THE   PHILLIPS   BROOKS   CALENDAR. 

A  Block  Calendar  for  1897,  with  a  leaf  to  tear  off  for  every  day,  giving 
a  short  selection.     50  cents. 


Sent  by  7nail^  post-paid.,  on  receipt  0/ price. 

K  R  DUTTON    &    CO.,  Publishers, 

3J  West  23d  Street,  New  York. 


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